If Everything's a Dream, Don't Wake Me
by Alma
Summary: A second calamity fell from the sky and everything changed. Ten years later, the world is a wasteland, and the remnants of the WRO fight to stop the alien threat once and for all. But the insidious nature of the monster may be more than any of them can handle. Post-apocalyptic. CloTi. Psychological horror.
1. The Second Calamity

\- The Second Calamity -

* * *

Denzel could still remember it. The day the second calamity fell from the skies was seared into his skull in bits of blinding color and dreadful sensations. It had been a beautiful day, really. Cloudless, sunny. Then the sky turned red and black in angry streaks, enveloping a single fireball as it crashed against the unmarred backdrop, plummeting down to the planet. He'd been with Marlene at the time in Edge. It was just after school and they'd been walking home together when it happened.

The calamity hit right along the outskirts the city, smashing through a section of homes and offices before grinding to a halt in piles of burnt earth and twisted metal. The acrid smell of chemicals from the destroyed buildings mingled with the delicate ash that hung in the air. And the smoke. Denzel would never forget the smoke. It billowed upwards, black and snakelike, a living thing in and of itself. Unnatural, had been his first impression.

Afterwards, everything had changed. The clear cold panic of that day dwindled into a constant undercurrent of dread as the WRO and ex-ShinRa scientists examined the chunk of rock that had fallen. Nobody knew what it was or where it had come from, only that it housed something surreal. An alien lifeform. Jenova, Cloud had told Tifa one night in a hushed voice downstairs. It must be, he'd said, and Denzel thought he could hear a tinge of fear in the man's voice.

General uneasiness followed for weeks. Still no reports were forthcoming, and Yuffie shook her head each time Tifa asked if there was news from the WRO. Something, she'd begged, anything. Cloud was falling into paranoia. He'd pace the empty bar late at night after closing far into the daylight of morning, then sleep all afternoon. Marlene reasoned to Denzel that he must be having nightmares. She'd heard him talk in his sleep once and he'd sounded angry.

It took a while for the smoke to cease. The fires burning deep beneath the mass of crumpled metal and concrete smoldered for days. When the initial scare had passed, the WRO announced that they were going to attempt communicating with the creature within, which, they claimed, was something they'd never seen before.

It all happened so fast after that. Suddenly, the thing had sparked to life, had duplicated itself in the form of a human, had attacked and killed several WRO agents. Then it spread. Like an infection, the alien being seemed to influence those around it, bending any mind to its will. The WRO lost control, and the alien amassed a small army relatively quickly, growing ever larger by the minute. A sea of mindless horrific hosts. By the time ShinRa developed a way to block the alien's influence, it was already too late.

But that had been ten years ago. Denzel sighed to clear the memories away. Ten long years, and Denzel had been but a boy. He wasn't a boy any longer.

He stared down the scope of his rifle, steadying his aim. Far below him in the street was a pair of scavengers talking. Denzel knew they had equipment, medicine specifically, but it didn't belong to them. They'd poached it from one of his transports, and it was Denzel's job to get it back.

Slowly, he breathed out and just at the end of his exhale, in the perfect moment of stillness, he squeezed the trigger. With a controlled kick, the bullet shot through his target, dropping the man instantly. His companion looked around in shock, but Denzel was already firing a second round, and a sudden hole in the man's throat bled out. Both lay in a lifeless heap, and Denzel breathed in.

Hopping down from the back of the defunct pickup truck, abandoned long ago when the initial battles had happened, Denzel approached. The city of Junon was a giant desolate husk laced with burnt-out buildings and crumbling wreckage. Only the most desperate lived this close to Edge and stole from the WRO.

The first man Denzel had shot lay bleeding on the concrete, but as Denzel stepped closer, he noticed the man wasn't quite dead yet. The bullet must've missed his heart. Blood bubbled from the man's lips and his wide eyes moved over Denzel in silent begging. Then he spotted the faded WRO badge on Denzel's arm, and anger cut his expression.

"WRO…" he said weakly, spitting a glob of blood, "You fuckin' pigs."

Denzel stood above him, rifle safely stowed on his back, and withdrew his dagger.

"You control...everything...while the rest of us...fade away," the man struggled to speak, then he grinned with a mouthful of red, "Heh. You're just like ShinRa...it's no different…"

Denzel knelt, pushing the man over to gain access to the backpack pinned beneath him. Sure enough, inside were the supplies and medicine. He pulled the bag from the dying man and put it on his own back.

"Just...like...ShinRa."

Then the man fell silent, dead. It was just as good. Denzel didn't want to have to slit his throat. He never enjoyed watching death up close like that. Leaving the bodies behind, he headed back into the maze of urban ruins, towards his motorcycle parked near the outskirts. This place would have once been considered the slums long ago, but now it was a wasteland.

Nobody else troubled him. The patch on his arm, though dirty and tattered, was usually enough to keep others away. It was nearly sunset by the time Denzel put the city at his back. He put on some music, an old cassette he'd kept from Tifa's bar, and Junon disappeared behind him, diminishing into a gray blot on the horizon.


	2. Slipping Closer

\- Slipping Closer -

* * *

The door hissed open in front of him, allowing Denzel to enter into the thick of the underground bunker. Shielded from above, the entryway was sunken beneath a heap of debris that had previously been Fort Condor. This was the current base of operations for the WRO. They were always on the move as the alien forces were constantly tracking them down. Denzel suspected that a few of them blamed him for the almost systematic way their locations kept getting discovered. Everyone knew he'd been close to Cloud.

Inside the bunker, Denzel walked through the corridors, passing by suspicious gazes of those civilians the WRO chose to protect. Anyone with specific knowledge of the alien lifeform was kept closely guarded and that meant mostly ex-ShinRa scientists who'd been involved with the first Jenova project and their families. Denzel took the stairs down into the basement and approached the guarded door at the end of the concrete tunnel. Makeshift support beams had been propped up to reinforce the damaged area. Two men with rifles stood outside the door, but they nodded at Denzel in a friendly gesture.

"Good to see you made it back," one of them said.

"Yeah, got the meds. He awake?" Denzel took off his backpack and withdrew the package of liquid.

"Mmmhm." The guard opened the door, then said, "Those guys across in Costa del Sol always come through, huh?"

Denzel vaguely nodded, not caring to mention the two scavengers he had to kill. The ship that had arrived from Costa del Sol in Junon had already been in bad shape, an easy target. Denzel should have arrived earlier to make sure there wasn't an ambush setup. He cursed himself for being so distracted earlier. Across the sea, the production of drugs that kept the alien influence away was constantly a concern. Everybody needed it, but there was only so much being made. Those closest to the front lines were priority, and that usually meant the WRO. And one very particular person in particular.

Stepping past the guards, Denzel entered the interior room. A simple bedroom with a warm yellow bulb in the ceiling that adjusted to mimic the daylight outside. In the center stood Elena, smoking a cigarette. Tseng sat awake in the chair, though he didn't move or acknowledge Denzel.

"About damn time," Elena snapped and flicked ash.

"There was a complication," Denzel replied, handing over the vials of serum.

The older blonde snatched the package from Denzel and pried one vial from the pack. She examined it briefly in the light, then nodded a thanks. Rummaging through a medical bag on the floor, she procured a needle and readied a dose from the vial.

"He doing any better today?" Denzel asked gently, shifting a bit with unease. Tseng's condition always made him uncomfortable. The man had been in Edge, very close to the crash site, when the first alien disruptions happened. When the calamity from the skies emerged, melding into a human form, Tseng had seen it. He'd heard its voice, seen its face, and he'd lost his mind. Unlike everyone else who'd been around the terrible thing that day, Tseng had survived. Barely.

"He has good days and bad," Elena responded with a sigh, pushing the needle into Tseng's arm. She lovingly looked at the catatonic man and brushed a strand of dark hair from his face. "Today was bad, though." She gazed down. "I fear he's slipping closer each day. And when it happens…"

When he turns, she means, Denzel thought. Everyone who came under the alien's thought patterns became hostile, violent, and ran off towards Edge, the epicenter of the calamity's strength. When they were seen again, they were changed. A construct of human parts and alien will. Elena couldn't allow that to happen to Tseng. She cared too much for the man.

"If it happens, I'll take care of him," Denzel finished her sentence, resting one hand on her shoulder. "He won't serve Jenova." They all called it Jenova, but truthfully that was only because there was no other word for it. Nobody knew if it was actually related to the first calamity. All attempts at studying it led to wildly different conclusions, as if the monster itself were changing over time.

"No," Elena straightened and faced the young man with a cold look, "No, I can handle it."

Sometimes Denzel forgot that she'd been a Turk long ago. They'd all been something else in the past, but she'd been a killer. A tactical bodyguard, a trained clandestine weapon. He released her shoulder.

"Is Marlene still here?" he asked, purposefully changing the subject.

Elena took a long pull of her cigarette while sterilizing the needle for next time. Tseng rolled his head to one side, but didn't speak. Denzel hated when the man looked at him. It was a pained expression, and Denzel always felt like he was being judged somehow.

"Yeah, I think so," Elena replied, smoke trailing from her lips, "But she was packing up. You may still be able to catch her."

Denzel acknowledged with a tiny nod, then departed, leaving Elena and Tseng behind. Each day the man slipped closer, she'd said. Denzel thought that sounded worse than hell. Tseng was conscious and cognizant of his surroundings, or so it seemed. He rarely spoke, but when he did it was in bits and pieces of angry dialogue that nobody could make sense of. Denzel had been under the willpower of Jenova once in his youth, back during the days of Geostigma, and that sort of helpless drugged compliance was something he still had nightmares about. Imagining that pull of Jenova's voice, that unnerving sensation to obey, was something he promised himself he'd never go through again. If it ever came down to it, he would kill himself. There was no way around it. But, as long as he had his own vial of serum, that would never happen. Every day, he injected a fresh stream of chemicals into his blood and that protected him from the stretch of alien infection. Being this close to Edge meant he needed it.

There was an opportunity to live across the sea, maybe in North Corel or Gongaga, safely distanced from the radiating terror from Edge, but Denzel had been involved with the WRO for as long as he could remember. It was where he belonged, fighting with everyone else, helping however he could.

Upstairs, he found Marlene nearly on her way out. The young woman had long brown hair tied in a braid down her back, secured with a faded red ribbon, and an overstuffed backpack over her shoulder. Through the assortment of people moving in the halls, he called out to her.

"Marlene!"

She turned and smiled once she spotted Denzel. She'd grown into a beautiful young woman. Inquisitive, daring, and smart, but Denzel still thought of her as his little sister. He always would, perhaps.

"Denzel, it's nice to see you. I feel like you're never around anymore." A smirk shone at the corner of her mouth. "Sometimes I get worried, you know?"

"I do most of the supply runs to Junon now," he replied, stepping next to her. Then he motioned towards her bag. "You heading down to Mideel?"

Marlene nodded and the smile slowly vanished. Her voice became low and sad, "You know Tifa is going to ask me…"

Ask if he'd been having those dreams again, he knew. Denzel had recently started having nightmares again, specifically of Cloud. Tifa seemed to think it meant something more. She'd become obsessive lately. Fearful of finally losing us, Denzel suspected.

"Tell her I'll try to see her soon, but no, there's been nothing new," he reported.

Marlene nodded then exhaled, disappointed. She glanced down at her watch. "Okay, well, I better get going if I wanna catch this airship out. Take care, Denzel. Hope to see you soon."

She gave him a kiss on the cheek then hurried down the hall, following the flow of people also heading towards the airship. Twice a day, small ships departed off the southern coast, stopping at the nearby islands before going to Gongaga then back again, moving people and equipment.

He waved goodbye and watched her go. He wished he could visit Tifa, too, but there was too much going on right now. So-called 'Jenovites' had been attacking supply lines in Junon with much higher frequency, and the WRO was formulating a plan to take-out the group once and for all. Their proximity to Edge remained the only deterrent. Free of Jenova's control, or so they claimed, the Jenovites were a group of people who lived in the ruins of Kalm. They hailed the calamity as their true god, worshipping it with fervor. They called themselves disciples and believed that if they consciously made an effort to live peacefully with the calamity, thwarting its enemies, particularly the WRO which meant to do it harm, then Jenova would spare them from its mind-numbing control. They groveled and purposefully protected the outskirts of Edge. But their recent raids of the serum coming through Junon made Denzel suspect they, too, were finally feeling the wrath of their god's power, regardless of how much they denied it. Nobody was truly immune.

An alert beeped on Denzel's phone. He was being called into the war room. The scouts on reconnaissance had just returned and there was news to be shared. A pit twisted in Denzel's stomach, a little turn of jealousy. He'd specifically requested to go on this mission, to get close to Edge, but Reeve had specifically forbad it. Nobody had said it aloud, but Denzel suspected it was because he'd been so close to Cloud in the past. His allegiance was always under fire since he'd froze up last year, and Denzel hated that.

He'd make them wait, he decided. Turning into the cantina, he decided to grab a cup of coffee first before heading downstairs. The warm brew wasn't exactly as good as the kind Tifa used to make him back in Edge, but it made him think of her still, and that's all he needed at the moment.


	3. This Light Between Us

\- This Light Between Us -

* * *

It was days like today that made Tifa Lockhart miss home. Quiet, calm, with the trace of a cold breeze. She'd been in Mideel for years, far away from Edge (for her own safety, she'd been told), but it never felt like home. Strangely, she thought of Nibelheim most. As time had passed, she found her mind wandering back to her youth. The simplicity of childhood was naturally preferable to the mess her life had become. Back then, they could all get by with just skinned knees.

The door creaked behind her and a series of gentle knocks sounded.

"Tifa?" It was Marlene.

She pulled her gaze from the window. The Lifestream had long receded and pits of shallow ocean water now covered most of the town. Cobbled together planks of wood and brick comprised the majority of the residences, though there wasn't much else. A marketplace and a few dozen docks lined the edges of the water. This place was a refuge, purposefully kept low population to avoid Jenova's sight. The unnatural armies of its will seemed drawn to cities mostly.

Tifa smiled over at the younger girl. It was incredible how much Marlene had grown. Each time Tifa saw her, Marlene's features were more edged, prominent. A hardened woman had emerged from the spunky child whom Tifa cared so dearly for. But there was an awful sadness behind her eyes, too. What a time to grow up, Tifa thought bleakly, with her family torn apart and the world teetering on the constant edge of fear.

"How are you doing today?" Marlene asked, embracing Tifa tightly.

"Fine," Tifa lied, "I've been helping at the docks a bit, and one of my new neighbors has a portable keyboard. I've been practicing piano again. At least, as much as the limited key range can allow."

Marlene nodded, trying her best to maintain a smile. It was a shame, really, that someone of Tifa's fighting ability had been stowed away like this, without much to keep her mind and body busy. But after what had happened during their first mission after the calamity awoke, everyone agreed this was for the best.

"Have you spoken to Denzel?" Tifa asked hopefully.

"Yeah." Marlene shifted a bit. "He says he'll come visit you soon."

"And what about Cloud?"

She'd said it so nonchalantly, like she was just asking about an acquaintance, but behind her eyes was a quiet desperation. Marlene had seen this pained look so many times, and each time it was harder to bear.

"Nothing new," Marlene reported then opened her backpack and retrieved a small crumpled bag. "Here, I brought you that oil you requested for your gloves. And also there are some doughnuts from Johnny. He's been doing some cooking at the Fort. It helps cheer people up. He's gotten pretty good at it."

Tifa took the bag and retrieved the bottle of oil, examining the label closely. She needed to keep her gloves in top shape. Even if there were no threats in Mideel, she wanted to always be ready. There was a little piece of her that still believed she could win, and she thought Denzel was the key. The boy had been possessed by Jenova at one point in his life, and she reasoned that some small trace of it likely remained behind. That could be the only explanation for the dreams. He'd told her of a series of vivid dreams he'd been having recently, ones where he's climbing and falling, lost in the monstrous ruins of Edge, and he hears Cloud talking to him. Calling to him for help, but everywhere he turns, the voice only gets further away.

They are just dreams, Marlene had said. Nightmares that anyone could have, but Tifa thought otherwise. She thought Cloud was using any link he could to reach her, and speaking through the traces of Jenova in Denzel seemed plausible. Cloud was trying to reach her, she knew it in her heart. And he needed help. He was still in there.

He's gone, everyone had told her. Why couldn't she just accept it?

Because she'd seen the look on his face that day before the calamity awoke. She'd heard the fear in his voice when he'd bolted into the bar that afternoon and told her they had to leave. They had to leave, now. Get the kids and go, quick as that. She'd picked up Marlene and Denzel from school and the four of them got the hell out of Edge while the rest of the city poked and pondered what the fallen rock could do. She'd only seen him afraid a handful of times and so she never questioned it. Cloud wasn't one to cry wolf.

They'd gotten as far as Junon and were boarding a ferry to Costa del Sol when the news broke. The thing in Edge had woken up. Something had emerged from the rock, and it appeared to be human. Cloud's face went pale. The destruction and terror that fell upon Edge was swift, but Cloud had already brought them out to Rocket Town, trying to get as far away as possible. Maybe he knew it wouldn't be enough. The WRO was descending on the threat and dropping like flies, and Yuffie was begging Cloud for his help, but he wouldn't go. He refused to leave Tifa and the kids behind.

Something in Tifa was always nagging her, though. The way Cloud would wince sometimes when he thought she wasn't looking. His past would always catch up, that much was certain, and the fact that an alien life form existed in him, latching onto his cells permanently, put him in a terrible position. One night while lying in bed with her, he'd confessed that he felt partly responsible, as if his very presence on the planet had somehow called down the new calamity. Unwarranted fears, no doubt, but nothing she did or said would lessen his anxieties.

Then one day he was gone. Just like that.

She woke up and he wasn't there. No note, no message on her phone. His clothes were all still in the closet and his motorcycle was parked outside, but the man was gone. The only other thing missing was his sword. It struck Tifa to the core, like an arm had been chopped off. She'd cried for days, grown angry, grown desperate, begged and prayed for him to come home, scoured the corners of every town with the kids in tow, searching for him. Two years passed, and there was still no sign, but Jenova's influence and army was growing. Society had fallen apart. She had to put her own needs aside and focus on protecting the planet and providing a safe place for the kids. Barret and Yuffie and Vincent were already involved with the WRO, so it was a natural option to align with them.

Once the protective serum against the alien's dominating presence was developed, a plan was formed by the WRO. They'd go directly into the heart of the twice-destroyed city, and confront this terrible being from the stars. They'd done it before, Barret had surmised, they'd do it again. Rid the planet of Jenova or whatever it was. Except Tifa didn't have the heart to mention that this time Cloud wasn't with them. He hadn't been the heart and soul of the party, but the Mako-enhanced Jenova-soaked resilience of his cells had definitely given them an advantage.

They'd moved together quietly at night. Overhead reconnaissance had placed the center of the alien activities at the south side of Edge, near the site of the crash. It felt good to have the whole gang together again, Tifa had mused. The champions who'd saved the planet before would save the planet again. Or so everyone hoped. She kept her doubts a secret.

Just before dawn, they attacked. With WRO foot soldiers flanking, the team struck right into the hornet's nest, and like a swarm the opposition reacted fast. Transformed by the strength of Jenova, hordes of armed denizens came down all around them. They fended off as many as they could, but it was too much. The monstrous spawns of Jenova seemed indestructible. Finally, Tifa ran. With Barret and Yuffie and a dozen others at her heels, she ran as fast as she could manage through the dead city.

That's when she saw him. Her heart stopped, her legs paused, and her lungs froze. Cloud stood in a wash of morning light, sword sheathed on his back. A mass of terrifying creatures were around him.

"Cloud!" she shouted against everything screaming in her to stay silent.

His head jerked to her direction, and in his eyes she swore she saw recognition. His face lit up and he moved towards her.

But something was wrong. The monsters around him were moving, too. Alongside him, not against him.

"No, Tifa, let's go!" Barret's voice boomed and he grabbed her arm.

She pulled away, motionless in the tide around her as the others rushed on, running away from the things surrounding Cloud. But she didn't run. She smiled. It had been so long and she'd been so sure he was dead. Tears of happiness welled in her eyes. He looked a bit different. His hair hung in messy clumps and he was wearing all black again, a curious choice since he'd moved onto more blues and grays last she'd seen. But it was definitely him beneath it all.

They were two lovers in a world of darkness with nothing but light between them. Beautiful morning light finding its way through the jagged ruined top of a collapsing office building.

Tifa opened her arms as Cloud approached. His fists relaxed, his eyes met hers. The minions flared around him, and they didn't touch her. She noticed that. There was a perfect bubble of space around her. Around them.

"Cloud?"

She no longer cared about anything else. She rushed forward, hugging him tight. Her cheek rested against his neck and she embraced him with everything in her. Searching for him had been her whole world since he'd vanished, and now she was whole again, holding him. He still smelled the same, that fresh strange hint of Mako on his skin. She kissed his neck, his cheek, his lips.

"Go," a soft strangled word spoke next to her ear. "Go now."

She pulled away and looked into his eyes. The eerie dim glow stared back at her, pleading. Then suddenly the blue she loved so much glimmered with green. It wasn't possible.

Then his hand yanked her hair roughly, twisting her to his side, and his other hand held her throat hard. Squeezing. It all happened so quickly, but suddenly she understood. He was, of course, under the alien's control. Whatever it was had infected him or been able to manipulate him as Jenova had. It was all so damn clear to her, why hadn't she realized it before? Maybe she had and she just didn't want to believe it.

He lifted her by the throat and threw her back a solid five paces. Arcs of pain splintered her back and side. Then he glowered at her for a moment before departing. The minions followed like a train behind him, but they left her alone.

She lay on the ground for several moments after he'd left. The creatures hadn't touched her, and the drugs in her veins kept her free from Jenova's control, but she couldn't move. Something inside her had broken.

"Tif?" Marlene's voice brought her back.

"Sorry, what were you saying?" Tifa replied, realizing she was still holding the bottle of oil in her hand. She placed it on the windowsill, then retrieved a soggy doughnut from the bottom of the greasy bag. It was covered with sprinkles.

But her head was still back there, her mind reeling with heavy memories. After that mission in Edge, she'd been asked collectively by Reeve and the others to excuse herself from any further active duty. With Cloud now in the potential mix of enemies and with all the confusion still surrounding the alien and its powers, the WRO thought it best if Tifa laid low. For her own safety, of course. Cloud had made direct contact with her and there'd been cases in the past of infections spreading through skin, or so she'd been told. It was all bullshit. She knew the real reason they wanted her to stay away. She loved Cloud and would do anything to protect him, and that included stopping the WRO if their interests conflicted with his well being. There must be a way to get through to him, she'd argued defiantly. He was obviously still in there or he would've killed her. But she was dismissed as a hopeless lover who couldn't accept that Cloud was gone.

And so he _was_ gone. The years passed and nothing changed. Until Denzel began having dreams.

Why had everyone given up? Tifa asked herself constantly. Was it just easier for them to push her away because the truth was that nobody knew what else to do? There was no plan because it was impossible to understand what had happened to him. Besides that, Cloud himself had warned her quite clearly in his own voice to stay away. Maybe he knew he'd already run out of time. Tifa had been over these thoughts a million times over the years. She'd tortured herself wildly at first, even gone back into Edge alone in an attempt to make contact with him again, but nothing came of it. She didn't see him again and she'd nearly gotten herself killed in the process.

Foolish. It was all very foolish. And over time, the determination and hope in her heart began to fade. The icing of the doughnut was melting in her fingertips. Would they even tell her if Cloud had been killed?

"I was saying that it's nice to hear you're playing piano again," Marlene piped up with a smile.

Tifa returned the smile then took a bite of the doughnut. Vanilla creme. Cloud loved vanilla.

"Thanks, Marlene. Tell Johnny the doughnuts are perfect," she said between chews, "It's nice to know the simple pleasures of pastries haven't been forgotten."

She took another bite and gazed back out the window as the sweetness dissolved on her tongue.


	4. Looking Glass

\- Looking Glass -

* * *

He was running, hunting, searching. Through the obscurity of dark concrete ruins and splintered stairwells, he pursued someone though he couldn't remember who or why. Only that he had to catch this person. An intruder, he was sure of it. Someone who didn't belong here. This place seemed so familiar but he couldn't quite place it. Like a distant memory that could've been a dream, or maybe a dream that could've been a memory. Ah, it didn't matter.

Something glimmered in the corner of the burnt-out hallway to his left. Cloud reached his arm out and pulled the trembling man from the shadows. He was crying, begging for his life, but Cloud knew this was impossible to grant. It wasn't up to him who lived or died anyways, and this man had already been given a death sentence. Cloud lifted the figure into the light and drew his sword.

In a flurry of adrenaline, Cloud jolted awake, gasping for breath above the deep fluid trenches of night. Tifa stirred next to him and sat up, startled.

"What?" she whispered at once, full of concern, "What is it?"

The room around him was his own bedroom in Edge. Quiet, dark. And Tifa...he turned towards her. Yes, she was right there. The streetlamp outside shone through the shaded window in a dim yellow glow, and he could see her eyes frantically moving back and forth between his.

"It's...nothing," he replied, relaxing, "Just another dream."

She touched his face, a gentle flutter of soft fingers against his cheek. Then she hugged him close.

"It's fine," she soothed, curling one hand into the back of his hair, "Everything is fine."

It always embarrassed him when this happened, especially since he'd been doing so well for so long. Why had the nightmares returned? It was just something they'd deal with together, she'd said. No big deal. But he hated feeling like he was somewhere else. Loss of control remained a constant underlying fear.

The next morning arrived and he set about his day as usual. It was another sunny day in Edge, and a slew of packages were waiting for him downstairs. He made breakfast for Tifa and Marlene, then savored his cup of coffee for an extra few minutes. The dream had bothered him. It had felt so real. They didn't happen frequently anymore, but when they did the vividness and intensity of the emotions overwhelmed him, bleeding into his waking self.

There were several deliveries to be done in Edge and a couple out to Kalm and one to Junon. Routine. He kissed Tifa goodbye, dropped Marlene off at school, and went to work. But the dream stayed with him this time.

He'd never told Tifa all of it. He figured she had likely grown tired of listening. In the beginning, when they first started happening, he told her about the intense fear he'd felt. The strong desire to leave, to flee. In his dreams, he'd taken them all across the ocean to some other town.

"Across the ocean?" she'd said, "And Barret allowed that? See, that's how you know it's a dream. He wouldn't let Marlene out of his sights if there was really any danger."

Cloud thought about that and concluded that she was right. No matter how real it all felt, he always woke up in his own bed, next to Tifa, and so they must be dreams. It was the only logical conclusion.

He never told her about the one where he'd held her by the throat and begged her to run. In the darkness around them, a single clear beam of light had appeared and illuminated her, standing clear as day across from him. She'd held him close, kissed his neck, and he told her to go. There was something dangerous going on and he had to protect her. He had to make her leave.

Sometimes he dreamt of Denzel as an adult, which again only proved that it couldn't possibly be real. Denzel had died years ago. Tifa said sometimes she dreamt of him too, as though she were imagining another life in which he'd lived and grown. He would've become a great man, she told Cloud, but he thought she only said it to try and make him feel better and not because she actually believed it.

The day went by quick and soon he found himself making the final delivery, over in Junon. Knocking on the door, Cloud checked his phone for any messages from Tifa or maybe Marlene and was completely taken aback by the man who answered. His long black hair was smoothed away from his face in organized disarray and dimly pale Mako eyes looked up.

"Yeah, what do you want?" the guy asked, leaning against the doorframe.

"Uh, here." Cloud fumbled with the parcel. "Delivery for you."

The other man took it and smiled. "Thanks, kid."

But Cloud had the most uncanny feeling that he'd seen this man before, somewhere. Or at least someone who looked strikingly similar.

"Anything else?" the guy asked, "What are you staring like that for?"

Cloud shook his head. "Sorry, I just… just confused you with someone else, I guess." Then he asked on a strange impulse, "You ever get that feeling like you're in two places at once? Like you get these little glimpses of the other side once in awhile?"

The other man shook his head. "Sorry, kid, can't say I have." Then he slammed the door.

Cloud retreated off the doorstep, feeling a bit foolish.

"Yeah," he mumbled, "Neither have I."

He decided to stop telling Tifa about the dreams entirely. Maybe she was right that Denzel's death had affected him more than he thought. He wanted to let it go, but somehow his mind kept circling back to it. Over and over.


	5. Take the Shot

\- Take the Shot -

* * *

Denzel hated these meetings. They mostly comprised of Reeve talking a lot, Barret agreeing, and Yuffie sulking. The times had worn on everyone and after so many failed missions, it was difficult to stay hopeful. They'd stopped sending anyone directly into Edge a while ago, but the recent recon team had gotten close and there was much to report.

The doors slid open and Denzel entered the conference room. Reeve was speaking but paused as Denzel took a seat opposite Vincent.

"As I was saying," Reeve continued, "Three of the four scouts were killed or captured, it's unclear which. The man who returned says the Jenovites in Kalm aren't using the serum for themselves. They are delivering it somewhere into Edge."

Elena lit a cigarette. Yuffie slowly reached for a doughnut from the pile at the center of the table.

"Now, this could mean the alien is studying the vials and possibly trying to develop a way to counteract its effects," Reeve said, then lowered his voice, "I don't have to impress upon anyone here how disastrous that would be."

"They wouldn't even have access to the serum if we hadn't moved operations here and started bringing it across the sea in the first place," Elena remarked grimly.

"You know why we came here, Elena," Reeve intoned.

To gain intel on the alien creature, Denzel repeated in his head. To move in the shadows and strike once a weakness was found because outright military force had failed time and again. He'd heard Reeve say this a hundred times.

Elena huffed and glared down.

"Has Tseng been able to recall any further information on the alien's appearance?" Reeve asked her.

The former leader of the Turks was the only living person who'd seen the physical form the calamity had taken. For some reason, all photographs were blurred or fuzzy around its features. Unmanned aerial surveillance couldn't track its movements without a proper target keyed in.

"No." A trail of ash fell from her cigarette.

"How are the Jenovites able to walk through Edge unharmed?" Vincent spoke up, switching everyone's attention back to Reeve.

Reeve sighed. "We don't know. But I'd like to find out. We can't continue to suffer attacks on our supply lines in Junon, and now with this latest information, I think it's time we move on Kalm." The room fell silent. "We must infiltrate Kalm and extract information from a Jenovite. By any means."

"I'll go," Vincent immediately replied. It was an obvious choice. The power of chaos living inside him made him the deadliest weapon they had and also left him curiously immune to Jenova's infectious will. At least, that's what Denzel assumed. He'd never seen the ageless man take an injection.

"No, we need you here in case of attack," Reeve said. Vincent had been instrumental in defending their last base at Bone Village. Without him, Denzel was sure they would've all been killed or worse.

"Send me," Denzel piped up, "Marlene and I used to visit Kalm all the time. I know the streets."

"No, that's too close to Edge." The response was automatic from Reeve, but Denzel was expecting this.

"Then I'm sure Marlene could-"

"Oh no, no, no way," Barret snapped loudly, "No fuckin' way. My little girl stays out of it."

Reeve thought carefully, eyeing Denzel, then said, "Yuffie. Elena. You two will sneak into Kalm and retrieve information however necessary, including anything on the missing scouts."

The ninja and the assassin. Denzel should've seen that choice coming. Both women nodded in acceptance of the mission, then everyone was dismissed. Denzel finished the rest of his coffee and stood. He knew why Reeve kept sending him to Junon. The mark on him from his terrible failure in Edge would never rinse clean. If he'd just been able to pull the damn trigger... At least they hadn't exiled him to Mideel, too.

Nobody could blame him, Marlene had tried to reason afterwards. Except everyone did. The mission was to move unseen into the north side of Edge and locate a group of missing soldiers. Miraculously, Denzel and his team had found them. Unconscious but alive, their serum apparently hadn't worn off yet and so Jenova's influence hadn't yet crept over their minds. They were unguarded, left in an abandoned building. Denzel's team began moving them out when a flurry of activity outside forced everyone to hide just as they were within reach of the city limits.

Then _he_ showed up. Nobody had seen Cloud since that day with Tifa, but there he was. In a terrible swarm of hideous creatures, the blonde was unmarred. He moved swiftly towards Denzel, though Denzel was certain he'd hidden well enough not to be spotted so quickly. The rest of the team was scattered around, concealed behind whatever they could find. Denzel had his rifle in his hands. Cloud was getting closer.

Take the shot if you can, Reeve had always told them. Cloud was far too dangerous, and if they couldn't find a way to save him, if it ever came down to life or death, take the shot.

Suddenly Cloud moved to the side, having spotted someone hiding in the wreckage. Instantly, the creatures descended upon the two soldiers, tearing them into shreds. Cloud had his sword out and cut down another three as they stood to run. Denzel felt his arms trembling.

Take the shot.

Nobody had seen him yet and he was in perfect position. Cloud was directly in his sights, destroying his team and the soldiers they'd been tasked to rescue. Surely, Cloud would kill all of them within minutes. The reticle steadied. Denzel breathed out.

And the memories of Cloud caved in around him. He could hear Tifa's frantic voice, telling him that Cloud was still in there somewhere. He could remember Cloud being so afraid, forcing them to flee Edge. Maybe he was still just as scared. Somewhere in there.

Before he knew what he was doing, Denzel was running. Screams of terror filled the air behind him, and he kept going. He left everyone behind. When he'd returned alone, Reeve demanded a full report on the spot, and Denzel told him everything. He didn't take the shot, and it had cost them nearly twenty lives. Most of their best soldiers gone in a flash. Denzel realized he fucked up and he had no excuse. It won't happen again, he assured Reeve.

But Reeve remained oddly quiet, listening. The more troubling news to him was that Cloud had appeared at all. In all their raids over the years, they'd only seen him once. The fact that he'd suddenly shown up during the only mission that Denzel had led could not be ignored. Nobody knew exactly what it meant, but Denzel was no longer allowed anywhere near Edge. If Cloud truly could sense him or if Jenova was somehow attuned to the living remnants of Cloud's surrogate family, then Denzel's presence could jeopardize future missions. There was no further discussion on the matter, and news of Denzel's desertion moved behind closed doors in hushed voices. He'd been placed on supply run duty ever since.

He stepped outside the conference room and found Yuffie waiting in the hall.

"Don't worry, you won't be missing much," she told him and lightly punched his shoulder, "It's going to be a lot of slow walking, and you know Elena is no fun."

"He should be sending you guys into Edge, not into Kalm," Denzel replied, still disappointed from the meeting. "Obviously we need to figure out what the alien is doing with that serum."

"One step at a time, kiddo. We can't afford to go directly into Edge until we understand how the Jenovites are doing it first."

Everything was so frustrating to Denzel. No matter what the WRO did, they were always one step behind. It would never be enough unless they did something drastic. Rescuing Cloud had been a priority at one point, but the man had been impossible to find and the scouting parties sent into Edge were all discovered with their bodies cut apart, the obvious handiwork of a sword. Tifa remained the only one to survive an encounter with him, and Reeve was fearful that if she ever saw Cloud again, she'd try to remain at his side and then they'd lose her, too. They'd tried developing a sort of antidote that could reverse the effects of Jenova's will, but anytime they captured one of the horde, the rest would inevitably follow as though linked. The creatures collective strength only grew as time passed and their deformities became more pronounced until it seemed no trace of humanity was left. The creatures swam across the seas, pursuing and attacking any large settlements at random, but Edge was always where they returned, and anyone unfortunate enough to not have access to the serum was overcome and transformed, falling back into the dark city. The WRO was constantly on the run, scrambling to catch up. Traditional weapons and materia were useless against the vast numbers. No matter how many they killed, it seemed like more would come. It didn't make sense, and Denzel was sick of it.

"You still having those dreams?" Yuffie asked, chewing a stick of gum.

"Yeah, but what good is that?"

She blew a bubble. It popped loudly. "Some Wutain legends say recurring dreams are a link to another world. A gateway, even."

"You've been chatting with Tifa it seems," he chuckled and waved the story away.

But Yuffie didn't laugh. With deadpan delivery she intoned, "We all miss him, Denzel. We all want him back."

Denzel shifted uncomfortably. He never should have told anyone about the stupid dreams. He was already enough of a social pariah around here, an otherworldly link with their enemy was not exactly helping his case.

She popped another bubble and released his gaze. "I've been thinkin' of a new way to reach him. Reeve won't like it, so we need to keep this between us."

Curiosity held him quiet, and a slow sly smile crept onto Yuffie's face.

She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Once we figure out how the Jenovites are moving safely through Edge, I want to take you into the city. I want Cloud to find us, I want to inject him with a shitload of serum, and I want to bring him home."

"But the serum doesn't work on anyone who is already infected," Denzel replied skeptically. Everyone knew that.

Yuffie leaned back. "I don't think he's infected the way others are. He looks the same, hasn't been transformed into one of those creatures, right?"

Denzel nodded. Yuffie let out a long sigh, sensing his hesitation. Marching into Edge could very well be a death sentence.

"Look, it's ultimately up to you, Denzel. If Elena and I can learn how to get into Edge without alerting Jenova, then you and me will figure out a time to do this. Without Reeve's blessing." She looked down at her watch. "I gotta run. Just think about it." Then she turned and left.

He crossed his arms and watched her go. Heading straight into the heart of the desolate city was dangerous, but deep down he was thankful that Yuffie had this plan, even if it was a long-shot.

A soft chime on his watch alerted that his next injection was due, and Denzel went to take care of it. Yuffie's plan kept his thoughts enthralled all evening, and as he was falling asleep that night, he realized he'd already decided to take her up on it.


	6. The Red and Gold Room

\- The Red and Gold Room -

* * *

A man with black hair stood in the far corner of the room. Denzel was certain that he was supposed to recognize him, but he didn't. The walls were painted red and gold. ShinRa colors, Denzel knew, though ShinRa didn't exist anymore. The man's chest was filled with bullet holes, leaking blood down the front of his deep blue shirt. A Soldier's uniform. The man pointed at himself, made a gun shape with his index finger and thumb then cocked it against his brow. Pow! He mouthed the single word. Pow. Pow. Then he pointed at Denzel.

An alarm buzzed, waking him. Groggily, Denzel silenced the sound and set about his morning routine. A shower, a shave, a cup of coffee with breakfast in the cantina. He scanned his phone for any messages, but there was nothing yet from Yuffie or Elena. A few other WRO soldiers passed him in the hallways, but they said nothing to him.

With Elena out of town, he'd need to give Tseng the next dose of serum. Downstairs, Denzel rolled the man out of bed, helped bathe him and clothe him, fed him, then sat him down in the usual chair by the table and prepared his injection. A fresh needle and a vial of yellowish liquid. The whole time the Turk said nothing. Then, just as Denzel was about to press the needle into the man's skin, Tseng came to life.

It was as though a switch had been turned. Tseng awoke from his deep reverie with a gasp and clutched Denzel's arm tight. He looked straight into Denzel's eyes and his whole body was shaking and rigid.

Denzel froze, terrified that he'd done something horribly wrong.

"...Fa…." The single syllable came from Tseng's throat. "Fa..."

Tseng suddenly swung one arm around, knocking the needle from Denzel's hand. He grabbed Denzel's shirt and pulled him close. Denzel, horrified, did nothing.

"...We thought...he was dead," Tseng whispered, shaking tremendously. Denzel steadied the older man with his free arm.

"Cloud?" Denzel's heart filled. The Turk had been catatonic for practically a decade, yet in that intimate space between them Denzel sincerely felt that whatever Tseng had to say was meant specifically for him. "Are you talking about Cloud?"

Tseng's eyes focused suddenly on Denzel. "Strife?"

"Yes. He's not dead. I've seen him," Denzel continued excitedly.

"No." The older man looked away, frowning as if he'd just realized there were several pieces missing from a jigsaw puzzle. "No, the asset."

"I...I don't understand," Denzel confessed, desperately trying to follow but his brain couldn't make sense of it. "What asset? Cloud?"

"No," Tseng repeated, "Fair."

"Fair? Fair what?"

But Tseng only kept repeating the word. He did it four more times before completely falling silent, resuming his comatose appearance. Denzel shook him, spoke to him, but there was no response. Tseng was gone once again. At last, Denzel gave up. The single word remained a mystery. He gave Tseng his injection and departed the room.

Wasting no time, he headed directly to Reeve's office. The single word was too important to wait, but Reeve was nowhere to be found. He'd been away all morning, Denzel was told. Barret was out on security detail, Vincent was watching the far northern perimeter, Cid was testing a new series of drones around Junon, and nobody knew where Reeve was. None of them answered Denzel's phone calls. Frustrated, he sent a message to Elena relaying what had happened with Tseng though he knew she likely wouldn't respond until her mission was completed.

The day rolled on slowly until finally Reeve came back to the base. Denzel had been waiting in his office for hours, but before the younger man could get a word out, Reeve pushed him aside. Something had gone wrong in Kalm. A garbled message had come through from Yuffie. Everything was happening fast. He may need to assemble a group to go after her if nobody heard from Elena soon.

There was no way they could lose two of their top assets. If it came down to a full assault on the dreary little shadow of Edge, then so be it. Reeve was intensely protective of Elena. Denzel suspected it was a sort of ex-ShinRa comradery, since they'd all been through so much together in the past. He could really only say the same for himself and Marlene. He felt connected to his little sister the way he figured soldiers were in battle. Even if she wasn't blood, he'd die for her.

Denzel listened to Reeve frantically prattle on, theorizing what could have happened and running through timetables aloud of how quickly he could get Vincent and Cid to mobilize, the distance between all the moving pieces and the type of weather they could expect in the evening if they needed to move quietly at night. There was a reason Reeve had naturally continued in the leadership role for so many years. Within barely ten minutes of being back in his office, Reeve had strategized four different solutions depending on two alternate scenarios, and more were spewing from him by the minute. Denzel couldn't get a word in.

Finally, Reeve paused and took a breath. Then he seemed to notice Denzel for the first time.

"What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be with Barret on security today?"

The strange episode with Tseng came tumbling back into his memory and Denzel stammered for just a second. Then he told Reeve the whole event, from Tseng's horrendous shaking to the sharp recognition of Cloud's name. Then he got to the part about the word Tseng had repeated over and over, and Reeve went entirely pale. Denzel knew this codeword meant something extremely important. Maybe it was another ShinRa thing.

Then Reeve dashed out of the room, alerting for Vincent to return to base immediately. Denzel tagged alongside him, begging for information. After giving a myriad of orders to a dozen different soldiers passing in the halls, Reeve halted and turned to Denzel.

"Tseng just told us the identity that the alien lifeform had chosen," he said with an awfully bitter smile, "Now we know exactly what we're looking for, and I think I know how it was able to draw Cloud in."

It all sounded like good news. And the way he'd said that last bit about Cloud made Denzel think that he, too, somehow believed that Cloud was still cognizant, lost under the years of Jenova's influence. Denzel smiled and called Marlene.


	7. Deep Down

\- Deep Down -

* * *

Everyone had told him it would get easier with time, but truthfully it never did. He just kept it quieter as the years ticked on. Sometimes he would mix something up and Tifa would correct him.

"I'm picking the kids up from school," he'd tell her as he was leaving in the afternoon.

"Kid," she would correct.

He'd make breakfast for everyone and set four places at the table instead of three. Tifa would quietly remove the fourth plate. It's okay to forget things, she'd tell him when he noticed. It's just part of the process.

How could he not be over it, he could somehow feel everyone thinking. Hadn't they all experienced trauma before, and hadn't he been able to move on from that? Surely, the death of his best friend, a man who'd saved his life, and the death of the beautiful flower girl, a woman who'd saved the planet, could have prepared him for this. After all, the kid wasn't even blood. But Zack's death was a blurry awful place in his scattered mind, and Aeris happened in the thick of a hurricane of pursuit and discovery. He still held onto them both, in soft dark moments, but he could let them go in the daylight because they'd meant something more. Their deaths had meant something more. For the greater good, he thought. But what good is a dead child?

He tried to lighten up. He tried to just trudge forward. But no matter how good his day was going, all it took was one little thing to bring Denzel back into his head. He'd see a kid on the street with the same backpack or hear the boy's favorite song playing on the radio in the supermarket. Tiny glimpses of him were everywhere.

Tifa felt his death, too, of course. Harder, perhaps, than Cloud. She barely got out of bed for weeks right after it happened, and Cloud found himself caring for her more than himself. He'd wash her hair and kiss her face. She seemed to rebound after a few years while Cloud only dragged. Eventually, their friends stopped coming over. The initial shock of loss spurred everyone into action, but once time passed, so too did the friendly visits and phone calls. Why couldn't he just get it together, he knew they wondered.

He felt trapped. But the days went on, and he spoke of it less. When Tifa caught an error he made, he simply smiled and moved on. It would never truly heal. Time didn't hold that much power.

Everything was going fine, just fine, he'd say. One day Yuffie came over to visit. She plopped down in a chair at the bar and held a fistful of marbles out to Cloud.

"My materia," she said, "is broken."

Cloud looked down at the colored orbs in her palm. They appeared perfectly normal.

"These were yours," she specified, "There's something wrong with them."

But when he reached out to take one from her, there was a tremendous hiss of static in his ears and a blinding white light exploded in his head. Through a fog, he grabbed her wrist to steady himself and that's when the world turned.

Suddenly, he was standing in a vast expanse of dark ruins with an awful chattering noise filling the air around him. Unintelligible. Alien. There were massive creatures, hideous half-formed monsters in the shadows. And Yuffie… she was standing directly in front of him, but she was much older. Her hair was a long dark braid held in place by a light blue bandana. She grabbed Cloud's arm and smiled at him through a frantic pained expression, and he could feel something excruciating flowing upwards from his arm like poison.

Then he awoke into the scene like a car crash. Instant reality hit. Yes, he was standing right there with her. This was real.

"Yuffie?" he shouted through the rain and wind.

"Cloud! Yes, it's me! Oh, Cloud!" Her smile only widened on her lips and in her eyes."Cloud!" She hugged him and he realized he was somehow holding his sword. He threw it down and hugged her back.

He got the distinct feeling that something awful was happening and that he was running out of time. Everything flooded back to him in pieces. The calamity. Leaving Edge. Tifa. Marlene. Then he saw Denzel. Standing behind Yuffie, holding a rifle, a guy stared over at Cloud in solid disbelief. He wasn't a boy, of course, but Cloud was absolutely positive it was him.

"Denzel…!" His arms fell from Yuffie. The rain tore between them.

But there was a third person present. Someone was approaching through the turmoil. Cloud turned to see who it was. And everything went dark.

Dark and painful. He faded away. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor of the bar with Tifa blinking above him.

With a start, Cloud sat up, glancing all around. The other place had been so real. He would've believed it were real forever if he hadn't woken up. Tifa looked into his eyes full of worry. He hadn't blacked out like that in a while. But this wasn't a dream or some vision. It was real, he told her. And Denzel was alive over there. Yuffie, too, but she was in terrible danger.

He knew it sounded crazy, but he had no other way to explain the feeling of the rain on his skin. The smell of the wet concrete crumbling around him. The breaths he'd taken on the other side. He needed her to understand that something more was going on here. Why wouldn't she just understand? He paced frantically, trying to remember every detail. He would write it all down, he told her, and they could figure it out together. They could somehow see what Denzel was trying to tell him. But even as he tried to recall it, the whole scene slipped away. The harder he focused on it, the more elusive it became.

"I can't have you fall apart again," Tifa told him, shaking her head sadly. "I can't go through it again. I need you here with me. I am barely hanging on, and I can't lose you, too."

"You have to believe me. Tifa, please."

But she didn't. She couldn't, she told him. Even though she desperately wanted to believe that somewhere things were different, that maybe they were all a happy family in some other plane, it just wasn't reality. She had to move on and moving on meant acceptance. If he couldn't do that, then she'd need to move on from him, too.

It hit Cloud hard. She was talking about leaving him. The thought sobered him up immediately.

"I'm sorry," he said to her, "I'm here. I'm not leaving you. I don't know what I was thinking."

Acceptance, he repeated to himself. Acceptance. He held her tightly in bed later that night and fell asleep with her hair in his face, letting her scent fill him.


	8. Into the Night

\- Into the Night -

* * *

"Fair? _Zack_ Fair? Are you sure?" Tifa's voice was frantic. She'd ripped the phone away from Marlene the second she'd heard the younger woman say that word.

Denzel couldn't really corroborate if Reeve or Tseng was referring to a Zack Fair in particular, but apparently the name was enough to stir anyone who'd been close to Cloud into a mild frenzy. It was the first and only breakthrough they'd had regarding Cloud's condition. This person, Fair, must've been close to Cloud in the past and had something to do with his time at ShinRa, though nobody wanted to fill Denzel in.

"Let me talk to Reeve," Tifa demanded. Denzel reluctantly handed the phone over. He was still in Reeve's office, watching the man pore over maps of Kalm.

Reeve spoke rapidly to her in a whispered voice. No, this didn't change anything quite yet. Yes, they were sure Tseng hadn't said anymore since. No, there was nothing she could do to help. But once he'd hung up, he sighed and rubbed his temples as though she'd exhausted him even further. Then suddenly an alarm sounded overhead. A perimeter breach. Reeve cursed under his breath and disappeared down the hall. Denzel followed, grabbing his rifle on the way.

The creatures had somehow discovered their base. The alarms only went off when alien cells were detected, but they'd been discovered so quickly this time it seemed impossible. He ascended to the rise overlooking the northern approach and steadied his rifle, looking through the scope for the source of the alarm. There, just along the ridge was Yuffie and Elena, hobbling together towards the base. No creatures. No monsters. Denzel let out a breath and headed down to greet them, puzzled.

The two women were injured, but Elena insisted on seeing Reeve immediately. Medical attention could wait. She relayed their mission fast, ignoring the obvious relief on Reeve's face that she'd returned alive. Being the last active Turk made her especially valuable. Yuffie shoved a stick of gum in her mouth.

The Jenovites were indeed moving the serum into Edge, but it wasn't to deliver it to the alien. They'd somehow been able to re-engineer the serum to mimic the properties of someone under the alien's influence. Using it, they were walking amongst the creatures in peace. "As our god intended," Elena relayed had been the disciple's exact words.

"Unfortunately, he died during questioning," Yuffie interjected dryly.

"But why move it into Edge?" Reeve circled back.

A new encampment was being established, Elena told him, comprised of Jenovites under the altered serum. They're building some sort of church, close to the calamity's crash site. The alien either remained unaware of the serum or it didn't care enough about the Jenovites to take any action.

"Maybe it enjoys having psychopaths around it," Yuffie added.

But everything shortly thereafter had gone to hell. A swarm of creatures patrolling the fields around Edge had attacked Kalm, precisely targeting Elena and Yuffie. The Jenovites stood by, patiently waiting for the monsters to tear them apart. They'd barely escaped, having killed three of the hideous things, then they'd hidden for hours until they were certain the creatures had rejoined Edge.

"So the perimeter alarm" Denzel spoke up, putting the pieces together, "You guys have the altered serum, then, right? The mimicry of alien cells?"

Yuffie smiled wide and retrieved a bundle from her backpack. Inside were several plastic bottles of greenish liquid. Apparently the Jenovites drank the stuff. She retched. Reeve cleared his throat, exhaled, and put a hand on Elena's shoulder then told her how relieved he was that she'd returned.

"Relax, old man." Yuffie stepped next to him, laughing, "Did you really think we'd fail? C'mon, you sent the two best for a reason. I'm upset you even worried at all!"

Reeve straightened his jacket. It was a huge step for them. The altered serum meant they could finally send a task force into Edge like a knife and cut out the heart of the alien in its nest. They had a means and they knew whose face it was wearing now. Elena and Yuffie already knew thanks to Denzel's message, but the news wasn't any less troubling when Reeve confirmed.

"It may mean he won't leave it willingly," Elena deduced at once.

But they couldn't really determine what any of it meant. Not yet. First, Reeve wanted the bottles of altered serum sent down to the labs. If their remaining scientists could duplicate the properties, they could shelter everyone from the alien's thought patterns and detection. Maybe. Tests would need to be done first, to see if both could be present in the human bloodstream at a time without adverse side effects. Then they had to program the drones to search for one particular ex-Soldier in Edge and relay constant locations. Once they had all the fact, then they could move.

"But that would take months!" Denzel protested, "And what about Cloud? I didn't hear you mention him in those plans."

Reeve held Denzel's gaze for a long time. There would be no extraction of Cloud. If the alien was holding this form specifically because of Cloud, then it could change its appearance if Cloud was removed and they couldn't afford to lose track of it now. Denzel glared at Reeve but ultimately nodded in agreement. It was war, after all, not family reunion.

Later that night, he sat alone in his room eating dinner when Yuffie knocked on the door.

"Hey, kiddo." She leaned against the doorframe. "Ready to go?"

Go? Denzel shook his head. Hadn't she heard Reeve? They needed to run tests on the strange new drugs. They couldn't go into Edge yet.

"Relax, I'm taking the new stuff. Not you. And besides, didn't _you_ hear him? There's no extraction plan for Cloud. We're officially on our own."

Denzel realized she was right. If Cloud had a strong link to the alien if and when Reeve's strike team killed it, then… Denzel didn't want to think about it. What it meant was time was running out if they wanted to help Cloud. He quickly finished dinner then gave himself his usual injection before grabbing his rifle and heading out with her. They snuck through the halls carefully, and just as they were about to reach the final doorway, a tall dark shadow stepped in front of them. Yuffie jumped.

"Vincent! You scared me half-to-death!" she berated him.

Two cold red eyes looked from her to Denzel then back. Vincent always gave Denzel the creeps. Even though he'd been Cloud's friend, there was something off about the man. An ex-Turk with the power of an actual monster living inside him. Basically nightmare-fuel. The man was nothing but polite and remained mostly silent unless asked questions, but Denzel had seen the thing inside him take over once. Chaos, he called it. There couldn't have been a better name.

"You two are leaving," Vincent observed softly.

"No. Maybe."

"Please don't, Yuffie," he implored. His voice always sounded so deceptively gentle. Denzel felt the tension rise between them. Vincent could, of course, stop them, and Yuffie's mischievous smile vanished. She suddenly became quite serious.

"Vincent, please." Then she lowered her voice considerably. "We're going to get Cloud out of there. Come with us. Help us bring him home."

The red eyes narrowed a bit. "Cloud is dead, Yuffie. That thing in Edge is not him."

"We don't know that for a fact," she argued, "And now we have a means to get into the city under the radar. We can finally get close to him."

"Tifa had gotten close to him."

"Yeah, and -"

"She practically lost her mind."

"But I have a plan, Vincent! And either you're going to help me or you're going to get out of the way."

The two stared at each other for a long awkward moment. Finally, Yuffie took one finger and pressed it against his chest, moving him back. Amazingly, Vincent didn't resist her, and Denzel got the feeling there was more history between them than he thought. As she stepped by the tall red cape, she pressed a small bottle into his hand. In case you change your mind, she told him. It was a bit of the altered serum so he could enter Edge undetected, too, if he wanted.

"I don't want," he insisted, but as he watched Denzel and Yuffie disappear in the night he remembered with fondness all the old battles they'd endured together. Truthfully, he would have gone with her, but leaving Reeve and the others defenseless was simply not an option. Not this close to the city. Even when her errand to Edge ultimately struck him as foolish, deep in his heart he nevertheless wished her luck.


	9. Lover's Chance

\- Lover's Chance -

* * *

Marlene watched Tifa pack, knowing it would be useless to try and stop the woman. When Tifa set her mind to something, she kept going until she hit a wall. And even then she wouldn't give up. Case in point being Cloud. He'd literally only been seen twice in Edge in the last ten years, yet Tifa was convinced he was alive and trapped. He was trying to contact them through dreams, or something. Marlene found it all rather hard to follow. Her own memories of Cloud were somewhat vague. She remembered him as a tall warm guy with a nice little smile and fluffy blonde hair. Someone safe. She had always felt protected when he was around.

But that was so long ago it might as well have been a dream. Marlene imagined that it would be hard to lose a lover the way Tifa had. To just literally wake up one day and your partner is gone, just like that. And when you see them again, they are someone else. Or something. Marlene had her fair share of broken hearts, but at least she knew the ones that she'd shared any intimacy with were dead. Barret never let her near any live action, nor did she have any desire to see the front lines, but both deaths close to her heart had been in the base, defending against those monsters or, arguably worse, scavengers. It only proved that death could happen anywhere, and Marlene quickly became a worn soul.

It seemed better to know someone was dead than to live with the constant gnawing questions that sprung from sleepless nights. The perpetual promise of a different future forever loomed in front of Tifa, and Marlene gained an almost morbid appreciation for the dead. The living were doing far more haunting, it seemed.

Tifa finished packing and looked around the room one last time. Looped around her neck was the silver ring Cloud had once given her. She'd never actually worn it until after Cloud's reappearance in Edge, Malene noted, as if holding onto any small piece of him could somehow invoke his presence or bond him to her. It was sad, really. Marlene frowned.

"Reeve won't be happy about this, but they will clearly need my help," Tifa announced, heading out the door with Marlene not far behind. "Zack Fair was someone I knew once, too, and if this thing is masquerading as Cloud's dead friend, then he'll need an alive friend to guide him home."

It all sounded very surreal. A dead friend. An alive friend. Marlene couldn't believe this is what constituted a normal conversation with her nowadays. Denzel would probably tell her it was a slight improvement, though not by much.

When they'd arrived at Fort Condor later that evening, Reeve was indeed not happy. They were doing everything they could, but a smart tactical maneuver took time to set in motion. Just rushing into Edge with guns and fists blazing meant nothing without research and observation. Tifa fumed. That thing has him, she stressed, and they both knew how much Zack meant to Cloud. How his identity had imprinted on the man after severe trauma. How she'd sifted through memories and reorganized the damn guy and now this thing was fucking with his head again. After all they'd been through, she was the one who could do it again. She could get him back.

"No," Reeve said.

She was too angry to do anything but stomp back to her quarters. She wanted to see Denzel but it would have to wait because right now she just wanted one drink to calm down. But Barret saw her drinking alone and decided to join her, and one drink turned into four then six. Tifa could hold her liquor, an artform that came from years of bartending but also years of forced solitude, but after Barret hugged her goodnight and drunkenly departed, she fell back into her bunk and curled up, asleep.

Morning woke her with a jolt. She'd nearly forgotten she was at the Fort and the unfamiliar scenery tricked her mind for a moment. Down in the cantina, she got a big mug of coffee and walked over to Denzel's room. He wasn't there. She asked Marlene if the girl had seen him, but nobody had. Don't be worried, Barret assured her, Denzel was probably on security up on the overlook. Reeve and the others seemed too busy to be bothered, and Elena was glued to Tseng's side. Tifa ascended to the roof and climbed up to the overlook.

The vista was a sweeping wasteland of dust and rock. Exposed. Unnatural. Not even a bird or bug flew in the air. The silence was unnerving. She imagined Denzel spending many long hours up here, alone, watching the ridge line for danger. Waiting in this abysmal place.

"Tifa."

She practically levitated into the air with fright at the sudden voice behind her. Turning fast, fists raised, she relaxed once she saw the familiar silhouette.

"Oh. Vincent." She let out a breath. "Hi."

It always amazed her how Vincent's appearance never changed. No matter how much time would pass, he remained isolated. The wind whipped around them.

"You are looking for Denzel," he noted. Under the mess of dark hair, he watched her.

"Yes, I...I just got in yesterday. I heard about Zack."

"He's not here," Vincent replied, "Denzel, I mean."

Tifa was taken aback. Not here?

"He's in Edge." The words fell from Vincent like rocks. Tifa stared, thunderstruck. Then it clicked. Denzel was surely going after Cloud, or maybe Jenova had called him there finally, to be consumed by the monsters lurking within. In either case, Tifa had to help him.

She pushed past Vincent. She had to go. There was no telling what would happen if Denzel was in that city alone.

"He's not alone," Vincent went on, and Tifa paused. "Yuffie is with him."

A flash of anger stabbed her chest. How could he know this and nobody else unless he'd seen them go, or maybe he helped them go. However it happened, it happened quietly and Vincent was obviously part of it. Why did they want to go alone, she wanted to know. Vincent relayed that Yuffie had tried to convince him to come along, but he'd refused, knowing he was the only one best equipped to defend the base.

"Or the only one best equipped for an offense," Tifa countered, "C'mon, let's go to Edge. Let's get our friends back and put down that monstrous pretender."

The vibrancy in her voice, the light in her eyes, moved him. Lost love was no stranger to his heart, and Tifa actually thought she could save her forlorn partner. It was sad, really. She carried on, begging him to help her. After all they'd been through in the past, surely he could leave the Fort and go into Edge with her. Yuffie had given him the altered serum, he admitted. It was likely they could pass unnoticed, at least for a little while.

"Please, Vincent. You know what it's like to lose someone very dear to something very horrible," she said, touching the gold claw on his arm, "Please help me bring him back. He's not gone yet. I know it. And Denzel and Yuffie are walking into something they can't possibly comprehend. I knew Zack. I knew Cloud's broken version of Zack. I can actually do something now. For the first time, I don't feel helpless, and I can't let it go."

He pulled away from her.

"I'm not going to stand by and do nothing," she went on, "And if you won't do it for Denzel or Yuffie or Cloud or even me, then I don't know what will convince you because that's all we have left. Each other. In this desolate place." Her eyes moved outward to the barren plain below. "I don't know what comes after that."

She stepped down from the overlook and descended, leaving Vincent behind. There was nothing more she could do or say. With or without anyone's help, she'd already made her mind to leave. If she told Barret or Reeve, they would likely try to stop her. Cid was out over Junon somewhere, but she sent him a message anyways, in case he wanted in on her little rebellion.

Within an hour, she was heading out, beyond the safety of the base. Just as she was walking through the perimeter line, bandana up around her nose and mouth to keep out the whirling dust, a red cape appeared along the other side of the ridge. He stood perfectly still as she neared him, then he broke into the faintest smile and followed her. She smiled, too, nodding in sincere appreciation, and set her sights on the distant forsaken city.


	10. Into the Stars

\- Into the Stars -

* * *

The rain had started when they reached the outskirts of Edge. A whip of wind and water greeted them like a guard barring entry to the towering dark maze, and Denzel could hardly see. Yuffie was next to him, trudging forward through the storm, equally soaked and shivering, but the altered serum was doing its trick, so Denzel knew he had to at least be thankful for that. Yuffie had drank some of it before they entered the city ruins and Denzel hadn't. Now they only had to hope the theory that Denzel was somehow naturally linked to Jenova was correct, or they would soon be overcome by a massive amount of monsters. Denzel could hear the creatures crawling all around them in the darkness. It was horrifically unsettling. The chattering noise of their mandibles and claws was almost impossible to bear, and he could imagine hordes of the things just outside of the scope of his flashlight. But they had to continue moving forward, quickly and quietly. That was the plan. Head towards the crash site, avoid Jenovites, and wait for Cloud to show up.

With flashlights kept low and dim, they moved together, occasionally halting and hiding in the sprawling mess of ruins to wait for a patrol ahead to pass by or a flock of Jenovites to scurry away. As they neared the crash site, the piles of rubble began to take formations Denzel had never seen before, honeycombed into vague semblances of structures, not quite fully formed. Eerie twisted images of homes.

"They build them on instinct," Yuffie explained, reading his expression, "They aren't human anymore, if that's what you're wondering. Elena and I have seen these before. When they first begin to turn, they build rough structures like these. There's so many here because we're nearing the place where the alien first took hold of people. The first victims."

The thought made Denzel shiver. Cloud was one of those victims, though he'd hardly been the first, and if Reeve and the others were to be believed, he wasn't even truly a victim. Denzel suddenly wasn't so sure of this plan. The last time he'd seen Cloud, the man was cutting apart WRO soldiers like paper with a terrifying mass of lethal creatures behind him. If this plan of Yuffie's didn't work, Cloud would likely kill them both. Or worse. The extent of the alien's infection was unknown when in close proximity. Nobody alive except for Tseng had seen the alien up close, and now Yuffie and Denzel were crawling right into its nest.

At the height of the next sloping junction of ruins, Yuffie paused. There it was, ahead of them. The crash site. The trail of destruction from the meteor's initial fall was overgrown and hardly noticeable but the gaping crater was not. It was nearly an entire city block and it was swarming with creatures. Denzel held his breath. The altered serum was still working though surely it was only a matter of time before Denzel attracted their attention. And when that happened, if Cloud never showed, their only plan was to run.

"Just run and don't look back," Yuffie had told him, "I can hold them off and rejoin you back at the Fort." But Denzel didn't like feeling that she was valuing his life above her own, so he mentally resolved to stand and fight with her if and when the time came.

Yuffie huddled beneath the awning of a destroyed cafe, and Denzel leaned next to her, gripping the rifle tight. Flashes of lightning periodically illuminated the marching horrors of the disfigured beings in the clearing below. Safe momentarily from the storm, but not from the cold, the two stood motionless, waiting, pressed into the shadows. It would happen soon, Yuffie assured him, especially now that they were stationary, but the darkness through the sheets of rain remained unbroken. Denzel stared hard into the emptiness, every cell in his body on high alert, ready to run or fight as the situation warranted. Yuffie busied herself by filling seven syringes with the ShinRa serum that protected against the alien's influence.

Questions and doubts spiraled in Denzel's head. None of it seemed like a good idea anymore.

Then a flurry of activity caught their attention. In the streaks of lighting, something had appeared below, walking from around the far side of the crater. Denzel knew it had to be Cloud even before the man emerged through the downpour. He'd recognized the clear cold dread that squirmed into his belly. It was the same sensation he'd felt before, when he failed so stupendously to take the shot. It wasn't quite fear, but it was pretty damn close. More like desperation for an alternative.

Cloud stepped forward, flanked by a dozen or so various monsters. The rain slid off their claws in long dripping torrents, and Cloud's blonde hair hung down, matted against his face and neck. But it was him. Untouched by Jenova's mutations. Just like the last time Denzel had seen him.

Yuffie held up one hand, signaling to Denzel to stay put and she held the syringes steady, eyes locked on her target. Cloud turned towards them, and Denzel felt without a doubt that, yes, he was the reason Cloud had found them. Twice now. And maybe Tifa was right after all. The pit in Denzel's stomach was making him queasy. Yuffie still held her hand up, though Denzel could see she was shaking now.

The creatures spilled forward suddenly, charging past their hiding place. Hideous wings and clicking jaws traveled by, and Yuffie shrank back further into the shadows, holding her breath. Cloud moved slowly, cautiously, as if trying to get a sense on the source of the disturbance. He approached, drawing his sword. The smooth familiar metal gleamed as he stepped right next to them, less than two paces away. Denzel hadn't been this close to Cloud since before the calamity, and the comforting warm presence he remembered of his surrogate father was nowhere near the thing that stood next to them. The edge of the sword turned. Cloud was looking around.

Then, finally, his back was to them. Yuffie closed her fist and leapt forward, syringes tightly in hand. But Cloud was fast. He instantly reacted, knocking Yuffie down without hesitation. The woman was thrown into the mud, then bounced back up immediately. One of the syringes was lost though, and Denzel realized she'd never be able to get close to Cloud unless the man was distracted.

So he did something brave. And stupid.

Denzel stepped forward behind Yuffie and looked straight at Cloud, rifle in his hands, rain between them. The blonde snapped his attention to the new threat, and the world froze. Cloud's eyes narrowed and for just a second, he ignored Yuffie. Just long enough for her to reach out and…

She grabbed Cloud's arm and jammed all six remaining needles into his forearm, plunging the fluid into him fast. The sword moved to counter and Denzel could see Yuffie's death milliseconds away, then the weapon stopped. Cloud staggered and gasped like he was drowning and he shook his head. Then his entire posture relaxed, and the lethality in his demeanor evaporated. He blinked at her in confusion.

"Yuffie…?"

It was him. It was Cloud. His voice. His eyes. Yuffie smiled the most she'd done in years and nodded rapidly at him.

"Cloud! Yes, it's me! Oh, Cloud!"

She embraced him tightly, crying and hugging and not caring at all that they were still in the thick of the most dangerous city. She only cared that he was back, that their crazy plan worked. Cloud threw down his sword and returned her hug, though it seemed more like a retroactive response, like he was still making sense of every bit of information around him. Then his eyes locked on Denzel.

"Denzel!" The happiness in Cloud's voice struck Denzel to the core, and the dread inside him melted away. It was all happening so fast. After all these years of searching and failing and losing and planning, they finally had him back. It was more than Denzel could bear, and he felt his throat tighten.

But something was wrong. It had been too easy, and suddenly Denzel realized they weren't alone. There was another figure approaching from behind Cloud. The blonde turned to see the newcomer, and the anxiety in Denzel's chest leapt hard upwards into his lungs and throat. Choking. Yuffie screamed and drew her weapon.

It was Zack. Or someone Denzel presumed had to be Zack. He was wearing a Soldier's uniform and had black hair perfectly angled away from his face. He, like Cloud, was also untouched by Jenova's mutations. Denzel suddenly realized he'd seen this man before. Yes, in his dreams. This was the Soldier standing in the red and yellow room, and somehow in his mind he knew this was the person Tseng had meant. The asset. The one that's dead. The one that the alien had taken as its human form.

Zack grinned and held his thumb and forefinger up in the shape of a gun. Then he pointed it straight at Denzel. Pow! And Denzel felt the most intense pain invade his head in sharp stabbing riots. A kaleidoscope of bright and dark flared in his vision. Pow, pow. Then everything went black, and he fell.


	11. Pow!

\- Pow! -

* * *

A rhythmic mechanical noise pulsed slow and steady around him. He was in the red and yellow room, standing near the back corner where he'd seen the dead Soldier in his dreams. The room was bright and dizzying, and the walls were bleeding stripes of gold down onto the floor, pooling at Denzel's feet. He tried to move away from it, but it crawled up his legs in ribbons and held him in place. The noise became louder, jarring.

Then all at once he gasped awake. Something was choking his throat and everything hurt. White light flooded his vision. His arms reached up to pull something out of his mouth. A long plastic tube. He gagged and threw it away. Streams of saliva were thick around his tongue. He began coughing violently, then he heard footsteps rush in. A woman wearing white and blue was suddenly at his side. He didn't recognize her at all, and panic escalated.

Slowly, his blurry vision focused. The woman was saying something, trying to calm him down. The red and yellow stripes were gone and there was only beige and pale colors everywhere. Then his brain finally snapped it all together.

He was in a hospital bed. It was cold. There was an IV in his arm and strings of plastic monitors attached to his chest. The scene shocked him, but he couldn't find his voice. The woman was a nurse. Yes, he could see her clearly now. The logo on her shirt was the WRO, but it was new and clean. She kept talking and held her hands up, then her heels clicked against the tiled floor as she disappeared from the room.

Denzel sat very still, catching his breath. The noise he'd heard had been the breathing machine to his left. The room was small and sparsely furnished, but to his right was an empty chair with a few personal items near it. A cellphone. A black sweatshirt. A vase of dying flowers. A half-eaten container of noodles.

But no, this was all wrong. He wasn't supposed to be in a hospital. Denzel looked down at his hands. A tag around his wrist stated his name, birthdate, and today's date except it was incredibly inaccurate. The date was roughly eight years ago. Something had… tricked him, maybe? No, that wasn't right either. Suddenly, he couldn't remember anything. He didn't even know what was going on.

"Denzel!" It was Cloud's voice. The man stood in the doorway with the nurse behind him. He was all smiles and entered the room with his arms wide. "I'm so relieved you're awake!"

Cloud rushed to Denzel, but everything was wrong about that, too. Denzel shirked away, and a strange panic bubbled up his spine. Cloud immediately embraced him, hugging the boy tight.

"I was just out stretching my legs," Cloud explained, "I'm so sorry I wasn't here when you woke up. That must've been scary for you." Then he grabbed the phone next to Denzel's bed. "I'm calling Tifa right now. She'll come right over."

He dialed with one hand and held Denzel's shoulder with the other, but something kept bothering Denzel. A gnawing feeling that he was forgetting something crucial, that there was something else entirely that he'd been doing. His eyes fell again on the WRO logo on the woman's chest.

"What...happened…?" Denzel's voice was a thin rasp. Practically nothing.

Cloud put the phone down and looked straight into Denzel's eyes.

"Do you remember the accident?" he asked sincerely.

Denzel thought for a moment, then shook his head. Cloud sighed.

"You were in an accident, and you were hurt very badly. Traumatic brain injury. You've been in a coma."

Denzel shifted his eyes to the nurse, who nodded solemnly.

"Do you remember who I am?" Cloud asked, looking as though he dreaded the response.

Denzel nodded. Of course he knew Cloud. Of course.

Cloud smiled. "Good." Then he exhaled and resumed calling Tifa. "Good... " He turned away as she picked up, and Denzel could hear her tinny voice exuberant on the other line.

Then his eyes went to the window. It was raining and dark, but beyond he could see city lights. A sprawling lively place. It was Edge. Perfectly intact and thriving. The rain pattered against the glass in quick clear streaks. Then a horrific flash burned suddenly in his vision. The ancient city, crawling with monstrosities. The rain, sliding off the edge of a large sharp sword. And Cloud… Denzel's adrenaline spiked beneath his skin. Cloud was going to kill them.

He remembered everything all at once — Yuffie's scheme, the needles, Cloud coming to his senses for a fraction of a moment before the other showed up — but he made absolutely no movement. Carefully, his eyes slid from the window back to Cloud, who was still on the phone. Then he looked at the open door behind the man. None of this was real. It couldn't be.

"Where's...my rifle?" Denzel tried to suppress the sheer panic threatening everything.

"Your what?" The nurse stepped forward, speaking softly.

"My rifle," Denzel repeated, "Where is it?"

"I...I'm sorry, sweetie. It's normal to be confused. You've been asleep a long time, but this nice young man has been at your side every day," the nurse continued, motioning to Cloud, "He's been there, holding your hand and speaking to you. It does help, you know. Speaking to someone like that. You probably heard him calling you home."

Home? Calling him… The dreams, the visions. The ones that Tifa thought were a link to Cloud. Was it possible…?

"She'll be here soon," Cloud said, hanging up the phone and smiling even more at Denzel. "I'm sure Marlene will be thrilled to see you, too."

Denzel was scrambling in his head to pick up the pieces. The other place had felt so damn real. The rain, the ruined city, the rifle in his hands, Yuffie lying in the mud. He could still smell the decay in the air from that place. How could he know if _this_ was real?

"Denzel?" Cloud leaned into his vision. "Hey, I know it's a lot to take in. Welcome back."

"You were...calling to me?" Suddenly Denzel wasn't so sure that what he remembered couldn't be a dream.

Cloud nodded. "Yes, I spoke to you every day."

But something still didn't sit right. It still felt fake, but the other place was already fading in his memories and he struggled to hold onto it. He couldn't lose it if it was real.

"No," Denzel croaked, and he slid himself up in bed. "No, this is wrong."

Cloud's smile faltered. Nothing was wrong, he assured the boy. Things would take time to process, and memory loss was normal. The injuries had been very severe and so confusion was to be expected. Dreaming of another place, another time, was something many comatose patients reported upon waking, the nurse offered helpfully. No, Denzel was adamant. No, this is wrong. This is false. He tried to get off the bed, but the moment his feet made contact with the floor, his muscles fell apart. Despite his brain sending signals to his legs to move, they didn't. He fell flat onto the cold tile. The IV ripped from his arm. Cloud moved towards him to help him up, but he scurried backwards on the floor, trying desperately to avoid it's touch. It was infected after all. It wasn't really Cloud. This wasn't really Edge. He knew it. Denzel knew it unequivocally.

The nurse bent down to help Denzel and he pointed viciously at her logo. Get Reeve on the phone now, he demanded. Tell him the mission failed.

"What mission? What are you talking about?" Cloud asked, kneeling on the floor near him, one arm still reaching out.

Shit, Reeve didn't know about it, Denzel realized. Yuffie had specifically kept it a secret and now he was trapped here. Wherever here was. His eyes settled on Cloud.

"I know what you are," Denzel croaked at him in contempt, "What did you do to Cloud? Where is he?! Why am I here?"

Cloud sat back, crestfallen. "You… So you don't remember me?"

"Why am I here?" Denzel repeated hoarsely, "Where is Cloud? We saved him, until you showed up."

"I'm Cloud. It's me. I'm right here…" His voice was so soothing and convincing.

"No," Denzel spat, "You're Jenova. I know you."

Cloud froze. "What did you just say?"

"You're Jenova. The man with the black hair." Why the hell couldn't he remember that name all of a sudden? The one Tseng had repeated over and over. The asset.

Cloud stared at Denzel, unsmiling, for several moments. It was clear the words had hurt him and that that particular topic was especially unwelcome. Denzel watched the reaction, and for some reason it made him feel bad. Cloud looked genuinely upset. Then he stood, leaving Denzel alone in the corner, and he took a few steps away. He said something to the nurse and then left the room entirely.

Denzel remained in place, thinking that he'd made an awful mistake. The nurse helped him up off the floor, and as he held trembling onto her arm, he caught a glance of himself in the mirror on the far wall. The one over the sink across the room. He was a young boy. Barely fourteen. It shocked him like ice water. He checked the date on his hospital bracelet again. This should've been after the calamity fell, but clearly by looking outside it seemed that never happened. None of it had happened. He wasn't an adult. He didn't have a rifle. The WRO wasn't the organization he worked for.

Slowly, the nurse helped him back into bed and gave him some water, then reinserted his IV. He'd need to stay for at least one more night to ensure things were all okay. There were policies in place that had to be followed. Denzel peered through the doorway behind her and he could see Cloud standing in the hall, arms crossed, looking down. A pang of regret filled Denzel's chest. He should've never said those things. It was just a mixed-up dream he'd had. None of the time in that other life had passed. None of it was real.

Again, he looked out the window. Edge was okay. Tifa would be here soon. And Cloud was not infected by a monster. He breathed out, absorbing it all. There was no way back to that horrorscape in his head. Because it wasn't real.

"No way back…" he muttered, and the words grounded him into this reality, "No way at all."

It was over. The terrible nightmare was gone.


	12. A Moment Apart

\- A Moment Apart -

* * *

"Are you sure this will work?" Tifa asked, eyeing the bottle of liquid.

Vincent shrugged. Nobody really knew anything about it, since Yuffie and Elena had only recently brought the altered serum back from Kalm. They stood near the edge of the desolate city in the rain. Tifa tied her hair back and downed half the bottle fast. The risks seemed marginal compared to the reward. The liquid tasted sour and stung the back of her throat. Then she held the rest out to Vincent.

They entered the city from the southwest, specifically avoiding several patrols near Kalm. Covert movement was essential if they were going to search for Yuffie and Denzel, and naturally Cloud, too. Tifa's heart twisted as they traveled through the ruins in trails of dark gravelly mud. Her jacket kept the rain from soaking her clothes, but her boots were a sloshy mess. The gloves on her hands felt good, though. She was relieved to be back in action. It had been too long since she'd felt useful, and even though she didn't really know Zack at all — she'd only met him once, and even then they hardly spoke — she felt like she was somehow the best equipped person to handle the situation. The devious form the alien had taken was linked directly to Cloud's past and so was she.

They moved quickly and quietly. Tifa could guess where Yuffie and Denzel had been heading. If they were trying to find Cloud, then they would have likely gone towards the crash site, and so that's where she was going, too. But halfway through the trek, climbing over wreckage and navigating impossible terrain, it became clear the altered serum wasn't working or maybe she simply hadn't drank enough of it. The creatures were following them through the rubble, getting closer with each second. The horrid noise of scurrying claws drew louder and louder until suddenly it was all around them. They were surrounded!

Tifa breathed out and fell into her meditative battle stance alongside Vincent. There was no way out but to fight.

The moment they stopped moving, the snarling packs descended, clicking and tearing through the air. With clear rigorous steps, she kicked through the kneecap of one, the thorax of another, expertly annihilating the joints and weak points. She punched through their grotesque bodies with satisfying crunches of cartilage and bone, snapping through leafy thin wings and deflecting razor sharp teeth, but she soon realized it wouldn't be enough. There were far too many, and more coming.

Vincent fired away at her side. The gun reloaded supernaturally fast in his hands, and a bullet blew apart the head of the monster right next to her. Then another immediately took its place. It was a losing battle. Tifa knew it.

Through the turmoil, Vincent motioned for her to run. He could hold them off with Chaos, so she nodded and tore a path outward. The rain blurred her vision, thunder cracked above her. And somewhere in the distance, she felt Cloud was near. He had to be. He was somewhere in the city, and she would find him.

The distraction of Vincent's transformation was enough to draw the attention of all the monsters and they moved towards him at a startling rate. Tifa ran. Her flashlight bounced in a dim circle on the ground as she splashed through puddles while pulling errant strands of long wet hair from her face.

The sounds of battle began to fade behind her. Vincent had been enough to detract from her presence entirely, but now she was alone. He'd be fine, she knew that much, but he'd specifically done that to protect her and now she had to press forward. Find Yuffie. Find Denzel. Find Cloud. She repeated the words in her head. Up over the next ridge of broken concrete, she paused just for a second to catch her breath. Everything was quiet except for the occasional clap of thunder above. She leaned against a rotting support beam of some long abandoned building, waiting for her heart rate to slow.

"Hello, Tifa."

She jumped and turned fast, fists raised.

And there he stood. The alien. The calamity from the skies. It had driven anyone who'd seen it into insanity and yet there it stood, looking perfectly reasonable. The voice was human, normal, and it chilled Tifa to the bone. She hadn't even heard him approach.

"Zack..."

He was alone, looking exactly as she had last seen him in real life. Soldier's uniform clean and crisp, though drenched in the rain. Long dark hair. And the sword on his back was the same she'd found Cloud holding onto that fateful rainy Midgar night. She'd been expecting an unnatural ominous presence, but everything about him was completely ordinary.

"Guess my secret is out, huh?" Zack went on casually, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, "Though I'm sure you and I would've seen each other eventually. You've been looking for me, I understand."

"I've been looking for _Cloud_ ," she specified angrily, "What have you done with him?"

"Cloud? Oh, you mean the host." Then he waved a hand in the air like it was a misunderstanding. "He's long dead."

Dead? No, it couldn't be. Her heart stammered. She caught her breath. "No, you're lying."

The look on Zack's face was a cold calculating smile. A shadow of a real human expression.

"What was your plan, I wonder?" he said to her. It was a childlike inquisitiveness. "You come here alone, unarmed, with this picture of a dead man in your head. Did you think it would really work in your favor this time?"

Anger buried into her chest. In a flash, she charged with all the years of hatred tensing in her muscles, releasing a fast succession of devastating fists. He moved with preternatural speed, dodging and evading. She tore at him again and again in a series of perfectly executed strikes, yet her powerful kicks thrust into empty air each time. The two of them danced like this through the mud, and she noticed he hadn't even drawn his weapon. Whatever his plan was, it wasn't to kill her, and she knew she had to act fast to find an opening in his defenses.

Finally, it happened. One of her punches connected, blurring into his jaw, and pain erupted over her fist. In that sliver of a second as he recovered, she stabbed full force with the blade of her hand like a knife right towards his neck. A killing blow. But before she could make contact, Zack's hand snapped onto her wrist, stopping her hard. He stuck to her like glue and something awful seeped up like a poison. It crawled through her arm and into her chest. Then he twisted and threw her away with ungodly strength.

She got up immediately, but through the rain she could see something strange was happening. She watched, horrified, as Zack's image transformed right before her eyes. His facial features shifted and his black hair turned lighter, shorter.

"No…That's not..." Tifa's words felt distant, small. Everything was crashing in her mind.

It was Cloud standing there, in front of her.

The ability to change one's looks, voice, and words, is the power of Jenova. Tifa stumbled back, frigid fear spreading down her arms and legs, paralyzing her muscles, her voice. Even the sword on his back had changed into Cloud's sword, and now he drew it with ease then removed a secondary blade. His hands moved so practiced and flawlessly that Tifa could've sworn it was really him standing there before her. The mimicry was absolute, convincing.

A tiny buzz in her skull was worming its way forward, feeding her information, connecting dots in logical patterns, and the truth hit her hard and sudden. Cloud really was dead. And the thing she'd seen so many years ago had actually been Jenova. It spared her for some terrible reason, and now she was collapsing under the weight of years of searching and hoping and holding onto him. It was all dissolving into dust in her hands. She'd been so close, she thought. So damn close.

"Why are you doing this?" Tifa found her voice somewhere in the fog. "What are you?"

Cloud toyed with the swords, moving the blades between his hands in sets.

"I'm protecting my family," he replied at last, "I'm sure you understand that."

"Family? What family?"

"The one you call Jenova. The one your people butchered and tore into fragments and cast around the planet." Cloud held up one sword, motioning around them. "I came here to retrieve the last of her, but I find she's been reduced to a handful of cells locked inside a male host and a few scattered echoes." He gazed at the edge of one of the swords. "Your people are a scourge, and I am cleansing this place."

"You're the scourge! Jenova destroyed an entire race of people!" Tifa shouted furiously.

"We are explorers. Innovators. We consume and build. We take on the form of things around us to better interact with our environment. If native species are destroyed in that process, its for a greater understanding. A higher purpose."

Tifa couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"You can join us," Cloud went on darkly, "Your family is here, too. With us."

Her heart jumped. "You mean Cloud. He's still…?"

"In some ways, yes." That smile she loved so much traced the edge of his mouth for a second. "Aren't I right here, after all? I can give you what you want. You've been waiting a very long time, Tifa."

It was becoming difficult to breathe, as if her lungs were filling with sludge. "Why me?" She fought against the urge to cough. "Why wouldn't you just kill me or turn me into one of those awful things?"

"The host has a particular affection for you. You are important to him, and since he has bonded with my family you are important to me. I wish to preserve that."

She regarded him warily, trying to ignore the buzz in her head.

"I'm not a monster," he added as if hurt.

It was all so terribly convincing. The way he stood, the way he held the swords. Even the way he rolled one shoulder back with the weight of the weapon. His voice was identical. His mannerisms. It put everything she believed into question. How long had this calamity even been on the planet? Suddenly she couldn't remember exactly. Had Cloud, perhaps, always been this...thing?

No, there was a crash site, her brain reasoned. And she'd taken the protective serum so she wasn't under its influence, yet she couldn't deny the otherworldly sensations cutting into her thoughts. The doubt. The uncertainty of her own memories.

"Join us," Cloud's voice continued, "Denzel is here, too. He was once touched by Jenova, and so I am preserving him as well. The last living remnants. Once this planet is cleansed we can all travel the stars together and rejoin the others."

 _The others_ , Tifa heard it echo in her head. A chilly black void of space filled her imagination. There were more of them. A whole host of calamities.

Cloud stepped next to her and touched her face gently. His skin brushed against hers and ignited years of longing, hoping. She couldn't bring herself to move away. She gazed up into those eerie Mako eyes through the rain. The most beautiful shade of blue.

"I've missed you, Tif."

Suddenly she felt dizzy. The storm spun around them. Her mind felt thick, cloudy. He was so close to her. So damn close. This was what she'd been searching for. Wasn't it?

"Wait, no…" Tifa mumbled, brushing his hand away. "No, this isn't right. You aren't -"

Then he kissed her. Pulled in close, she was instantly lost to him, enveloped in his touch and scent. His taste. It was really him, every bit of it. Even the way he caressed the side of her jaw with exactly two fingers, the way he always would, felt genuine. It burned through her. And suddenly it didn't seem so bad. This was what she wanted, after all. To have him back. And this _was_ him. She knew it without a doubt. He kissed her and held her tightly and everything was fine. Just fine. When he released her, she opened her eyes and saw him smiling.

They stood, two lovers in the rain, amidst a sea of architectural decay, but she wasn't afraid. She'd finally found him. In her mind flashed that moment so long ago when she'd seen him in Edge with those horrid creatures around him, with nothing but light between them, but the image extinguished fast like a candle when he spoke again.

"I never gave up because of you," he said softly, "I knew you'd come for me, and now we can be together here."

The strong sensation of vertigo gripped her, and she found herself holding onto Cloud tightly in the hurricane of dizzying shapes and dreary wet colors. His blue eyes kept her steady somehow. She felt warm and safe. Happy.

Then a sound cut through the air, shattering the enchantment. His face exploded in pain. A claw ruptured through the center of his chest in a gush of blood and bone. Tifa screamed, holding onto him as everything in her fell apart. Blood bubbled up his throat, dribbled down his mouth. The huge claw withdrew and Cloud crumbled to the floor.

"No!" she shouted desperately, collapsing next to him in the mud. "No, no, no!" Then she viciously turned her head to the murderer.

Vincent was behind Cloud, transformed into Chaos, with long claws protruding from his wrists and dark red wings spread around him.

"What did you do?!" Tifa demanded angrily. Hot tears stung her eyes.

Chaos lifted her up and pulled her away from the body. She fought and twisted and punched but he did not let her go. Her eyes were locked on her bleeding lover.

"Tifa," Vincent's voice emanated from the folds of red shadow, "It isn't him. I need to kill it. Let me finish this."

But Tifa wasn't convinced. Vincent was the monster, after all, and her poor Cloud was struggling to stand.

"Aren't you a curious one…" Cloud said to Vincent, wiping blood from his mouth, "You are also made of something ancient, except you are from the planet, not the stars. Do all your people infect themselves with things they don't understand?" Then he turned his attention to Tifa. "Tif, come over here. Get away from that thing."

The claw around her shoulders did not let go, and Vincent knew he had to make a choice. End it now and possibly catch Tifa in the crossfire as she would surely fight to defend what she thought was Cloud, or take her to safety away from the alien. Outside of its vicinity Vincent could only hope its influence would wear off and she'd come back to them. It was now obvious that the serums did nothing against the sheer force of will that the calamity himself presented.

Vincent thought of Tseng. Tifa would, perhaps, never be the same. This time she's had more than direct contact with Cloud. The alien itself had touched her, spoken to her, invaded her. Manipulated her.

"Let her go," Cloud demanded, holding one hand over the wound pouring blood from his chest. He would have been dead by now, but of course Vincent knew he wasn't human. Not in the least bit. "Let her come back to her family. She wants to be with us."

Tifa fought vehemently against Vincent, and with the alien wounded it was very appealing to simply release her and attack the true monster. Cloud stumbled towards him. Time was running out. He had to make a choice. So he let her go.

Being the only one mercilessly free of the calamity's control in any sense meant he had a duty to protect those who weren't. Tifa was deep down in the undercurrent, and even though Vincent cared very deeply for her, and her devotion to her lost love was admirable, he knew the only real choice he had was no choice at all. He had to attack the alien now that he actually had a shot. He'd never seen it, never been close in any regard. And now he could end it all. Tifa would understand.

She immediately rushed to Cloud's side and helped him up. His chest was broken open, but the gory wound was already coagulating. With swords in both hands, Cloud rushed at Vincent, Tifa not far behind, flexing her gloved knuckles.

Vincent had never considered what it would be like to fight companions such as these. It was jarring. The alien moved just as Cloud would, switching sets of blades flawlessly in his hands, before swiping at Vincent with heavy killing blows. Tifa was right there, throwing punches and kicks in fast deadly combinations. Chaos wanted full control, he could hear the demon enticing him in his head, snickering.

Cloud's sword moved effortlessly towards Vincent, but he avoided each strike. If nothing else, the absolute imitation of Cloud meant that Vincent could anticipate his attacks more fully. He'd fought alongside the real Cloud many years ago, and training as a Turk never left one's mind. He'd mentally catalogued every movement in the past. Then Tifa caught Vincent in the side with a monstrous painful kick, and Chaos responded in a snap, pulling the woman off her feet and slamming her against the side of a nearby concrete slab. Tifa crumpled and lay on the ground coughing. When Vincent turned his attention back to Cloud, he found the alien had once again elected to wear Zack's face instead.

"Never met me before, have you?" Zack challenged, "Let's see if you can counter me as easily as you could Cloud."

His stance was completely different, he held the massive two-handed sword with elegant ease, and he was right. Vincent had never met Zack, but he had an idea how First-Class Soldiers had been trained. Chaos laughed. Combat was the natural state of the demon and now it feasted hungrily on the alien standing there in a dark blue Soldier's uniform. Zack blocked and striked and Chaos evaded and swiped, and the two moved in synchronous ferocity until Vincent allowed Chaos full control. Wings lifted the demon into the sky like a hurricane and he appeared quick behind Zack, poised to strike.

The sword blocked again then sliced through the air, but Chaos was quicker. The winged monster moved fast, too fast for the sword to follow, and claws tore deep into Zack's abdomen peeling through bone and flesh. Within seconds, Chaos was ripping him apart. The alien withstood the onslaught for just one moment longer and sliced through a leathery bit of the creature's massive wing, but Chaos refused to disengage and tore into Zack until the pretender was nothing but a bloody pile. At last, the alien collapsed. In the corner of his eye, Vincent spotted Tifa slowly getting up.

"What...what did you do?" Tifa cried in alarm, still suppressed by the thing's influence.

Vincent stood over his victim, wings splattered in rain and blood. The pool of cells that had been Zack began to coalesce. It was re-forming. Of course, Vincent reminded himself, Jenova is nearly impossible to kill and the Lifestream hadn't surfaced anywhere on the planet in years, which had so far proven the only reliable way to permanently subdue it. Such a powerful being wouldn't be destroyed so simply in battle, but at least he had grievously injured it and perhaps that was all they needed to find Cloud and retrieve him.

Quickly, he went to Tifa's side. She stood with one hand over her mouth, mud streaked across her face. Vincent closed his arms around her, protecting her from the grisly mess, and then ascended into the sky with her. Safe from repercussions of the alien below, he brought them both over the skyline of burned and broken buildings. Through the sheets of rain, he saw a hollowed out area atop a skyscraper near the northern edge of the city and touched down there. His wings were damaged and he couldn't maintain flight through the storm for very long, but at the very least he'd put a lot of distance between them and the calamity.

Resting Tifa down, he coerced Chaos back into its dormant state, and the claws and wings faded back down beneath his red cape like a nightmare disappearing in the daylight. Tifa was very still, clutching her knees against her chest. The other Cloud had felt so real, she told Vincent, so damn real.

"That's why Reeve never wanted you here," Vincent replied, "You care too much about Cloud."

He'd said it like it was a bad thing, and she frowned. Then the fog around her head lifted, like coming off the dizzying haze of a deep debilitating drug. Clarity snapped around her, and suddenly she remembered kissing him, the calamity. When it was inside of her, she'd shared something with it. It had shown her something vast, ancient. Expansive. She'd felt it's reach. She'd felt every living thing it had infected. Not just people, but animals and plants, too. She'd felt each and every one of them. And, she said with a smile, she'd felt Cloud. And Denzel. They were alive, lost in the twisting otherworldly influence that permeated everything connected to the alien.

"It's timeless," she reported, trying to make sense of the images and things she'd felt, "Endless. Things just exist and happen and nothing ends. Or begins. It's...just a loop."

Vincent sat next to her, listening intently. What she saw could have been fabricated as had everything else, he reminded her. It had, after all, convinced her that it was Cloud and that Cloud was holding her. And furthermore, nobody has survived the alien unscathed so it was very likely she would experience something catastrophic soon.

"It may have already tried infecting you," he said, "and if it failed this time because of the serum, it may not fail again."

As he spoke, she felt something else happening in her mind. A deep undying link to Cloud suddenly illuminated, bright and clear. A path through Jenova.

"Vincent," she interrupted him excitedly, eyes wide, "I know where Cloud is. I can see him."

The older man regarded her skeptically.

"No," she insisted, "I see him. In Midgar. I can find him. He's in the old Sector Five. North of the crash site."

Tifa's eyes were alight with desperation and joy. She clearly believed wholeheartedly what she was seeing, and although she should technically be as babbling and inept as Tseng, the alien had shown significant interest in her and specifically hadn't harmed her. Maybe this was one way to take advantage of whatever connection she had with Cloud and Jenova, Vincent thought carefully. With the alien hopefully down for at least some time recovering, this could be exactly the moment they'd been waiting for. An opportunity to retrieve Cloud, truly their best weapon against Jenova. And if Tifa knew where to find him...

"Vincent, please, you must believe me!"

He had to at least try. And if she were correct, then this was the first good news they'd had in years. Briskly, he nodded.

"Let's go get him," he said, aware that time was of the essence, and her smile collapsed into a happy exhale of relief. Their luck was finally turning.


	13. Into Dust

\- Into Dust -

* * *

The days went by like wind, and the terrible awakening in the hospital faded into a regrettable memory. The coma, everyone agreed sympathetically, had mixed up his head a bit. The accident had been very bad, after all, and he was lucky to be alive. He'd gone to the top of a construction site on a dare and slipped in the rain, cracking his skull open. Nobody had expected him to live, and yet a miracle had happened.

Denzel never felt better. The bright vibrant world around him hummed with life, and the daily annoyances of school work and teachers seemed so confoundingly normal that he was actually thankful for them. Even though he hardly spoke of the other world, as he'd come to call it, he still felt its presence everywhere. In little glimpses all day, he saw the city in the rain, the water running off the edge of cool deadly steel, the clicking mandibles of deformed creatures in the darkness, and he'd hear Yuffie yelling over the sounds of a storm. He'd see Cloud standing there, drenched in the downpour, with needles sticking from one arm.

Then he'd catch Tifa smiling over at Cloud while they were out together somewhere with blue skies overhead, and Denzel would anchor himself back into this life. This Tifa was happy, a stark contrast to the sad disheveled mess he'd last seen in Mideel, and surely that was proof enough that things were better here.

Yet still, the other world itched like a phantom limb, and ever so often the scenery around him would dip into a surrealism so unnerving that little pieces of his mind would scream out. The other world would roar to life in fresh awful sensations until he woke into the calm dizzy morning light of the plain nothing of a silent bedroom and he'd spot Marlene sleeping peacefully in the bed next to his.

It was so strange to Denzel to see her again as a child because he'd had years of memories of her growing up and becoming an adult and fighting alongside him in the WRO. Training together and eating together and laughing together. And crying together. But here she was. A child again. None of the terrible things that plagued the Marlene he knew in the WRO were anywhere near this girl.

Time passed, but things only got worse. The frenzied panic of the other world bled into his daily routine and he often caught himself staring, spellbound, at some object that would trigger a cascade of memories. The years of war and death he'd experienced kept getting more real with each day. He kept telling himself it was impossible, but nothing helped.

One day he sat with Yuffie and felt an odd compulsion to talk to her about it. She'd been there, after all, in the visions. Standing in the rain.

"Didn't you once tell me," he asked carefully, "that Wutain legends say recurring dreams are a link to another place? A gateway, even?" But the Yuffie in this world was arrogant, playful. She brushed Denzel off and told Tifa he was spending too much time with Cloud.

"A little looney," she'd said and made a corkscrew gesture around her head.

His reputation did not improve. The following week after school, he saw Marlene with her friends and overheard them asking about him.

"My brother's crazy," she'd said dismissively, and Denzel kept walking, pretending not to notice.

Crazy. He sure felt crazy. The twilight version of Edge sprawled nightly in his head, and even though the chronology of events didn't mesh quite right, he knew it was all cohesive. Like viewing a complete photograph through several half-obscured keyholes. He began to write it all down, to keep track of the timeline and make sense of what he was seeing. But even as he jotted down the flashes of the WRO base, the conversations he'd had with a heartbroken Tifa, the serum, the crash site, he felt it all fading away. Somehow, it was harder to recall things when he was actually trying to make sense of them. Nevertheless, he kept writing. Surely, answers would eventually be forthcoming. It was only a matter of time.

And still he dreamt. Soon it became his obsession. He slept more, trying to stay there longer, trying to bring back more pieces of the puzzle. Tifa spoke to him quietly, asking him to let her help.

"Whatever you need, Denzel," she'd said softly, "I'm here for you. We're all here for you. But you need to tell us what's going on."

But he couldn't. Not to anyone. Whenever he spoke of it, it faded away as if actively slithering out of his thoughts. As if something was pulling the truth away from him. Each day he felt it slipping, and forgetting suddenly terrified him more than anything.

He needed to find a way out before it left him entirely.

A coma. The rain. He'd slipped at the construction site. No, no, that was wrong. It was all an illusion. This place was never real, and each night it was the authentic world he was experiencing. His subconscious could go back there, he realized. Some part of his brain was able to re-emerge on the other side, and if he could just fall asleep longer, get himself back into a coma somehow, he could be there again. Maybe he could save Cloud. That's what it was about, right?

He tried one last time to talk to Cloud. Maybe the real Cloud was actually trapped here, too, and maybe they could find a way out together.

Late one afternoon, he found Cloud alone upstairs in Tifa's bedroom. Five swords were splayed on the bedspread while Cloud tinkered with the sixth in his hands. Even though Cloud and Tifa had been together for a long time, sharing the same bedroom of course, Denzel still always thought of it as _her_ bedroom somehow. As Denzel entered, Cloud gathered the pieces together in flawless precision and assembled the sword in one swift motion. It suddenly made Denzel queasy, and an image kicked hard into his thoughts. He could practically hear the rain splattering against the steel, glinting in the flashes of lighting. Fear tightened in his chest.

"I don't use it anymore, haven't for years," Cloud said by way of explanation, holding the weapon at ease, "It's silly. Sometimes I worry it'll get rusty." Then he looked over at Denzel.

Denzel paused for a moment, doubting it all as the lethality of the weapon suffocated the room. Then Denzel pushed his fears aside and forced himself to talk. He told Cloud everything. The other world. The second calamity. The fears that Cloud, too, was trapped here with him. But he couldn't remember the name of that person, the asset, the one that everyone was afraid of. It frustrated Denzel to no end because he knew that if he could just remember that damn name, Cloud would surely snap out of it and realize he, too, had been fooled by the monster.

When he'd reached the end of everything, he took a breath and stared at Cloud, waiting for some reaction. But Cloud merely stood very still then placed the sword down. He walked over to Denzel and hugged him tight.

"I don't know what's going on with you, but you need to come back to us," Cloud said, "I know what it's like to be so mixed up you don't know truth from fiction, but please trust me when I say this is real. You're here with me, and everything is fine. I'm not lost or under control of...any alien or anything. I'm right here, and you are, too." Then he looked into Denzel's eyes. "Okay?"

It was almost convincing. Cloud was so calm yet appropriately concerned. A perfect reaction. Denzel slowly backed away. Wherever the real Cloud was, it wasn't here with him. Everything in this reality was false, and Denzel made up his mind to find a way out permanently.

The next day, Cloud got a phone call.

By the time anyone had realized Denzel was missing, Denzel had been found. The troubled boy had gone to the roof of the school and was discovered a grisly mess in the concrete parking lot below. A tragic accident, surely. Cloud was devastated. The day was seared forever into his brain in sharp horrific detail. The phone call that broke him in two.

Everything changed after that.

Days went by somehow. There was a funeral. Friends flocked to his side. Tifa didn't get out of bed for months, and Cloud always felt like he was standing still. Like the world was just moving on without him. The notes that Denzel had kept from his dreams of the other world remained a mystery. Cloud leafed through them one day, but they were nothing but nonsensical symbols and drawings. Circles and triangles arranged in odd patterns. He'd put the notebook away, along with all of Denzel's things, in the attic.

But that was years ago, Cloud remembered. Denzel's death was distant, and all he had now was acceptance. He repeated the word in his head and tried to smile over at Tifa as she lay in bed next to him.

"More bad dreams?" she asked quietly.

"Not exactly…"

The swords were still under the bed, but he hadn't touched them in years. The same amount of time that Denzel had been gone. That last conversation they'd had haunted him. Sometimes memories came back randomly like that.

Cloud put his arm around Tifa and did his best to fall asleep. A sliver of streetlight peeling through the blinds fell across his arm, and he noticed a series of raised bumps like a rash. Six of them. The other world, he thought grimly. Then he moved out of the light and went to sleep.


	14. More Than Anything

\- More Than Anything -

* * *

She moved quickly through the rain, and Vincent trailed behind. She was completely convinced that she knew where Cloud was, that her link to the alien had somehow granted her extrasensory perception, but Vincent had serious doubts. The city was difficult enough to navigate when it hadn't been a pile of wreckage, yet Tifa pushed forward with steadfast resolve. He had to admire her determination, and somewhere deep down inside he was hoping she was right.

They weaved and turned and sometimes doubled-back when faced with a patrol of scurrying creatures, but thus far Tifa's path had been true and they'd avoided further detection. No doubt the alien was repairing itself now, and for just a moment, Vincent pondered that his own sanity may be under fire along with Tifa's given that they'd both been in direct contact with the thing. He mused that Tseng would surely have two more companions soon, but so far Tifa wasn't exhibiting any psychosis aside from purely illogical determination and Vincent himself felt strangely fine. Maybe Chaos did protect him more than he thought, he grimly reflected.

Suddenly, Tifa stopped and Vincent nearly ran right into her. Far below them was a clearing. It was the ruins of the church in Sector Five, though the foundation was all that was left standing. The pool of the Lifestream below was long gone, and there were just muddy dark puddles surrounding the remnants now.

Sure enough, there was Cloud. Like a mirage, he stood very still leaning against the debris of an adjacent building, shielded from the rain by a decayed awning. He seemed to be watching the church, though it wasn't clear why. He was so motionless, he practically blended into the background, and Vincent squinted through the storm. Tifa grabbed Vincent's arm. She knew immediately it was really truly him. The illusion that the alien had created was too clean, perfect. This Cloud looked tired, cold, and muddy. Her heart soared. This was it. She was going to walk over there and get him out. She would bring him home. It would all be over soon.

Be careful, Vincent warned her. He wouldn't be able to transform until his demonic form had healed itself from the injuries Zack caused earlier, which wouldn't be for at least another few hours. So she was extensively alone if Cloud turned out to be a mindless killer, though Vincent reasoned he could get a few shots off before Cloud likely destroyed them both.

"He won't hurt me," Tifa stated, though it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself, "But I think I should go alone."

Vincent nodded and fell back into the shadows nearby, and Tifa carefully stepped forward. She was freezing, drenched. The warmth of the alien's touch had long faded, and a bitter fear resonated at the back of her mind. If she was wrong, then… no, she pushed the thoughts away. No, she wasn't wrong.

She descended into the clearing behind him as slowly and soundlessly as she could, her heart beating wildly fast. The storm masked most of her movements as she approached. He was like a statue, and the sheathed weapon normally on his back was instead propped against the wall behind him.

Finally, she stood under the awning behind him. He turned his chin slightly, catching the sound of her breaths, but otherwise didn't move.

"Cloud," Tifa said through a smile. "Cloud, it's me. I'm here. I found you."

Still he didn't move. She took a step towards him.

"Cloud?"

He was watching her though, over his shoulder, like he was unsure if she were real. She kept walking closer, carefully, until she was near enough to touch him. One trembling hand reached out. She badly wanted to feel him on her skin, to know that he was real. Alive. Hers.

"Why did you come here?" he suddenly asked in a flat dead tone without turning around. "I told you to stay away. I tried to protect you."

She pulled her hand back and breathed out in relief. It was him. Really truly. Except he sounded awful. She steadied her racing pulse as best she could and swallowed hard.

"I'm here to bring you home," she replied softly. The rain pattered against the debris around them.

"I'm keeping them away from you right now. You and Vincent," Cloud went on morosely, "But I can't protect you forever. Not here. I don't have many free moments like this. It thinks I'm alone."

"Come with me," Tifa implored, "Please! I've been… searching for you for so long. I've been trying to convince everyone that you're still here, alive, but nobody has-"

"I can't leave." The words were cold, small, absolute.

She paused, taken aback. "Cloud, let me see you. Please. Turn around. I need to see you."

"You should go." He resumed his gaze towards the church, ignoring her.

"Why can't you leave? I don't understand."

"Go, Tif."

Anger curled her fists. She'd worked too damn hard and traveled too damn far for him to dismiss her so easily. It was a cruel cold slice to her heart, especially because he otherwise seemed entirely normal and not at all a mindless subservient monster. The awful resonance of the doppelganger she'd kissed held her tight. She had to free the man standing in front of her. She had to bring him back. There was no way she could fail.

"I saw him. I saw Zack," she said bravely, stifling every urge to touch him. "He pretended to be you."

"I pretended to be him."

She blinked. He didn't seem to be comprehending. "No, I saw the alien," she clarified, frustrated with his ambivalence, "Cloud, the calamity is walking around. You know this, right?"

"Tif… You need to go. Don't you get it?"

"No, Cloud," she raised her voice, "No, there's nothing to get except that you've been gone for years and I...I miss you." It was all falling apart fast. The years of isolation and longing spread through her heart and lungs, transforming into anger. "Does that mean nothing to you? Do _I_ mean nothing to you?"

He gazed at her over his shoulder. "I think you know that's not true." Then he turned away again and added gently, "I miss you more than anything."

There was only half of him there, she decided. A part of his mind was far away, trapped somewhere she couldn't fathom. It was like he'd been pared down, cut apart into basic functions. He spoke. He moved. But it wasn't fully him. A crucial piece was missing. She reached out, desperate to touch him, to shake some sense into him, to force him to face her, but before she could make contact he sprung to life and backed away from her fast.

"No!" he shouted suddenly. "You can't touch me. It moves through physical contact. If it senses you here, it will-"

"I don't care."

"Well, I do," he replied, still backing away with both hands raised. "It wants you, and I don't want you trapped with me here."

She didn't relent. She approached, and he pressed his back against the wall. A mild panic was rising in his expression.

"Tifa…"

"Tell me how I can help," she said, holding his frantic gaze, "Tell me where you are. I can see you aren't here right now. Where are you?"

"Tifa, you need to go."

"Where are you, Cloud?"

She felt like she was losing her mind talking to him. Seeing him standing there, so close yet inaccessible, it was torture. Plain and simple. She had to touch him. She had to get through somehow.

"No, Tif. Don't!"

She grabbed his arm, his hand went up to hers, and the world melted around them. His touch was real, steady, warm. He didn't pull away, as she thought he would. Instead he held onto her tightly, so tightly. She felt his heartbeat through her as they hugged, and tears sprang into her eyes. Impossible. How could she have ever confused that imposter with him? The life he gave her was intense, unimaginable. It flowed around them like an ocean.

"I can't protect you now," he said softly, "I'm so sorry, Tif."

She held him and didn't let go, squeezing her eyes shut. She would never let go of him again.

"I'll find you," she said to him in the space between them, "Just like I did before. I promise I'll find you again. Wherever you are, beneath all this-"

Then her voice stopped short, as if her lungs were suddenly frozen. She couldn't breathe. Something was terribly wrong. She felt Cloud's arms fall away from her, then everything went black. The sounds of rain drifted away then cut into static. It hissed in her ears, getting louder and louder. Her skin went numb. Something painful was spreading along the base of her skull, down her spine. Something catastrophic.

She awoke with a gasp, coughing and choking violently. She'd felt like she was drowning. But her eyes focused quick and the scene shocked her into silence at once. She lay motionless on her own bed, in the apartment above the bar in Edge. She'd remembered the room from the years that her and Cloud had of course spent there together. But it was impossible. It was a trick.

"Cloud?" She tested her voice, but the room was silent. Unmoving. A clock ticked on the wall. She called him again, louder. But there was still no answer.

Carefully, she got out of bed. None of his things were in the room. It was the same physical place but someone else's things were here mixed in with hers and she didn't recognize any of it. It didn't make any sense. When she lived in Edge, Cloud had always been there. Her eyes caught a glimpse outside. The view from the window portrayed a lovely day, slightly overcast, but entirely intact. The city was fine. No destruction. No alien massacre.

Okay, she breathed out, this is an illusion. I'm in the place where he's trapped, she reminded herself. None of this is real. At least not in the literal sense. But her brain fed her signals that yes, this was very real. The place she'd dreamt of had been exactly that. Just a dream.

"No…" she whispered to herself and hung onto the other world as best she could. She'd first need to find Cloud here, in this version of events. Then she'd figure a way to get them both out. This must be where the other half of his mind is trapped, she thought firmly.

The door to her bedroom creaked open and the entire upper floor was quiet. Papers rustled downstairs. It was still early afternoon and so the bar wouldn't be open of course, but there was definite sounds of another person. With a twist of happiness in her heart, she headed downstairs, but she stopped cold at the landing.

Rufus Shinra sat at one of the tables, rifling through piles of receipts, marking notes in a ledger. There were two trays of cash from the registers in front of him and he seemed to be counting them.

Tifa's stomach sank and she had trouble breathing suddenly. He had no right to be here, no right at all, and yet there he sat looking perfectly at home. Natural. Rufus noticed her and looked up with a smile.

"Oh hello, darling." He smoothed his golden hair back. "I was starting to wonder when you'd wake up. You don't normally sleep in this late." Then he stood and walked over to the bar. Tifa watched, awestruck, as he casually retrieved a mug and poured her a cup of coffee from the pot on the burner. "Here you go, love."

She didn't move. Rufus sighed and carried the mug over to her. He placed it in her hands then gave her a kiss on the cheek before once again resuming his tedious work at the table. Tifa still hadn't moved. The shock of the entire scene had her in its grasps. Her mind was struggling to contend with the fact that Rufus was, apparently, her lover. The man who had once ordered her execution was now sitting comfortably in her home.

"Where's Cloud?" she asked starkly, surprised at even her own voice.

Rufus slowly looked over at her and his eyes darkened. Then he let out a single laugh.

"Don't tell me that old flame is still troubling you…" He smiled deviously at her. "Bad dreams, again?"

"How long has he been gone?" Tifa asked, her thoughts reeling.

Rufus sighed again and looked up as if trying to remember. "Hmm, I guess it's been about four years now since you left him. Two years since we've gotten together." Then his eyes lit up. "Oh, are you trying to figure out our anniversary? Or perhaps the anniversary of you finally dumping that loser…?"

Tifa felt her knees weaken. Four years. They'd been split up for four years over here. Wherever here is. It wasn't real, she reminded herself.

"Yeah, after what happened with Denzel," Rufus carried on, "a real tragedy of course, he just couldn't keep it together. Can't say I blame you. You gave him fair warning to get his shit together, but he just couldn't be there for you. Not the way I am. Not the way you deserve." He smiled again at her, but it was an intimate loving expression. "Miss Lockhart, you really do amaze me how long you put up with him."

Then he looked back down at his paperwork, as if their conversation was over. Tifa found herself gazing at the coffee in her hands, struggling to put any pieces together at all in her head. Cloud was gone here, too.

"Where is he?" she asked, trying to keep her voice even.

Rufus once again paused and gazed over at her from the table. "Do I need to be worried, my dear?"

Tifa shook her head. "No. Nope. I just...I have something of his. And I want to return it."

"Oh really? What is it? Don't tell me you've finally decided to get rid of that dreadful notebook of Denzel's…"

Tifa snatched the idea from his words immediately, not knowing what he meant at all. "Yup, that's right. I think he should have it. Cloud should."

Rufus regarded her coolly for a moment then shrugged it off and went back to the papers. "Good. I think it's still upstairs with the rest of Denzel's things in the attic. But," he finished scribbling something in the ledger and then checked his phone as a message buzzed in before continuing to Tifa, "But I don't know where Cloud is. Maybe ask your friend. What's his name. Barry."

"Barret."

"Yes, him."

"I will…"

She took a sip of the coffee and held tight to the feeling of Cloud's arms around her in the dark rainy city. She went over the sensation again as she'd held him close and promised to bring him home. The reasons behind her important task and the knowledge of that other place, the ruined version of Edge, was already fading like the traces of a dream, but she held onto him in her thoughts. She held onto everything she could. And she knew she'd be able to find him here.


	15. Little Pieces

\- Little Pieces -

* * *

Something buzzed overhead. A dull whine, like a machine. A light shone in her face and her entire body hurt. She tried to cough. Her eyes focused, and a drone was perched in the sky above her. Then Cid's face entered her view.

"You're alive!" he exclaimed happily, "What the fuck, kid. You had me worried. Where's Tifa?"

She vaguely looked over at him. The name sounded familiar, but there was something itching around the interior of her skull, gnawing at her thoughts. A tremor like a grinding noise.

"Hey. Yuffie. You okay? Talk to me."

But she couldn't. Her mind was a horrific blur. An awful painful place kept surfacing whenever she tried to remember what had happened. It was all just fragments. A handful of needles. The image of the thing. The alien. Cloud had tried protecting her from it. He'd thrown her out of the way and she'd somehow hit her head? And maybe blacked out? It was so hard to remember.

Cid was shaking her, but that just made things worse. She rolled over and threw up in a sudden dizzy spell. She retched until her throat hurt. Cid held her shoulders and patted her back. Finally she stopped and he lifted her up, holding her steady. It was no longer raining, though the sky above was still dark. A flashlight was secured to Cid's shirt, a dim ring of light glared at her.

"Yuffie? Fuck. Say something!"

He was starting to panic. She tried to say something, to warn him about the calamity. The terrible thing from the stars. It had looked at her. It had seen right through her. She could still feel its gaze. Watching. It would never stop watching.

The drone hovered close. She recognized it as one of Cid's. It was a seeker, programmed with all the WRO agents' images, which is how he could've found her. They'd tried weaponizing them at one point, but without an actually effective weapon, it had proven useless and so the mechs were largely used for reconnaissance only.

"Is Tifa here with you?" Cid asked her hurriedly, "She sent me a message that she was coming into the city to search for you and Denzel." And Cloud, he thought sullenly, but tough luck with that one. Cloud was impossible to find, everyone knew that.

Yuffie looked up at the flying contraption, still unable to find any words. Then she felt something new, unique. Something was calling her forward. A part of her mind still not fully affected realized what was happening. The serums didn't work against the actual monster himself. It kept her safe from its influence but only to a certain degree. Being that close to it had done something, gone right through all their precautions, and in her head she began screaming. Outwardly, she could do nothing but feel the pull of...something.

"Shit, I gotta get you back to the Fort. You're freezing. And you're acting weird as hell!" Cid said, holding her tight. "Forget Tifa. We can come back with Reeve and a team to get her out if we must."

"No." Yuffie heard the sound croak from her throat and one hand darted out, grabbing Cid by the collar. "No."

Suddenly the drone began chirping. It was a low eerie noise, and Cid immediately flipped open a receiver in his hand and examined the display. It was detecting someone nearby. He released its holding pattern and the mech buzzed off, towards the direction that Yuffie had felt the pull. Within moments, an image was sent back to Cid and he knew he couldn't afford to ignore it. The drone had picked up Denzel's picture, though it was slightly blurry. A semi-positive ID.

"Shit." Cid raked a hand through his hair. He had to go get the kid, if he could. Denzel was far too valuable in this fight. Reeve would kill him if he left Denzel behind. Dragging Yuffie along, he followed the trail, periodically checking the device in his hands. Denzel wasn't moving, which seemed a bad sign.

At the crossroads of the next mess of former streets, Cid stopped. The signal was coming from right around here yet there was nothing. Not even a chattering terrible creature in the vicinity. Then Cid spotted him, alone and completely motionless.

Denzel stood with his back to them. His rifle was casually lowered in one hand.

"Hey kid…" Cid whispered loudly, edging towards him. Yuffie struggled somewhat but Cid didn't let her go. There was something terrible happening to her and the fact that she couldn't talk meant one of two things. She was either playing an awful joke on him or she'd seen the calamity and was falling apart inside. She'd taken the usual protective serum, he assumed, so that was likely the only thing keeping her from sputtering and turning into one of those awful things and joining the other denizens of this city.

Still Denzel didn't turn around. Cid approached cautiously, inching forward with Yuffie. The silence around them was unsettling. Only the occasional drip of water could be heard from the crumbling roof of the long destroyed storefront next to them.

"Denzel?" Cid reached out.

Before he could make contact, Denzel spun around and Cid jumped back. The young man's eyes were alight with a sickly green shade, a cold vacant look. Cid stumbled back a step, not taking his eyes off the kid. He knew exactly what it meant. Fucking Jenova. Or something close enough to it.

"Shit. Come on, kid. Don't do this. Don't let this happen…" Cid knew reasoning wouldn't work, but the words spilled from him anyways as he slowly moved his free hand to the nested pike on his back. With a flip, the weapon assembled in his hand. Denzel moved his eyes to the threat then back to Cid, but made no other movement. "Denzel, come on. We need to go. I need to take you -"

Then Yuffie suddenly bolted, twisting her arm free. She couldn't take the smothering feeling any longer. She needed to be somewhere. It was impossible to resist, even though she knew it was all wrong. Cid made a feeble attempt to grab for her, but he was scared to take his eyes off Denzel. The young man began raising his rifle.

"No!" Cid shouted at both, but Yuffie was already gone. She'd vanished beyond the scope of Cid's flashlight, into the dark city. "Fuck!" He yelled out, realizing he couldn't pursue her fast enough without leaving Denzel behind, which was a huge problem. Denzel was important to the WRO because of his link to Cloud, and Cid could almost hear Reeve's voice demanding him not to lose the kid. Cid looked over to where Yuffie had disappeared then back at Denzel, whose sunken eyes now glared uneasily at Cid.

The entire situation was completely and totally fucked.

Cid took a step away, still attempting to mentally solve the issue, when his back hit something. Someone. Someone who hadn't been there just seconds before. Someone tall. Denzel smiled, and spikes of icy dread hit Cid in the stomach.

Pike in hand, he turned slowly.

Cloud stood directly behind him, swords gleaming in either hand. The dimly luminescent eyes regarded Cid like an annoyance, a small curiosity. Did he even remember Cid? Fright crawled over Cid's skin. Cloud looked like death. He'd been somehow living in this place for years, sustained by who knows what, clearly under the alien's control. Cid backed away, towards Denzel. He hadn't even heard Cloud approach. It was inconceivable that anyone could be that quiet, but then Cid remembered it wasn't Cloud anymore. It wasn't even human. Not really.

"H-hey, buddy," Cid edged away, positioning his pike with both hands for combat, "Long time no see." Literally years. Cid had actually assumed Cloud was dead. A phantom in stories.

The swords snapped together in Cloud's hand, loud and sudden, and he held one arm out towards Denzel, ignoring Cid entirely. Denzel came forward.

Without thinking, Cid reacted. He stashed the pike, grabbed Denzel with both hands, lifting him off the ground, and then he ran. As fast as he could manage, Cid got the fuck away from Cloud because if nothing else, he knew there was no chance he could rescue Cloud. No way against the lethality of those swords and judging by the intense look on Cloud's face, the man was way far lost. Possibly not even there at all. Not even a little bit.

Denzel, on the other hand, hadn't been under the alien's control for long. Maybe, just maybe there was a possibility that they could save him. Cid just had to get him away from Edge, back to the Fort. Forget Yuffie and Cloud and Tifa. Pure survival instinct kept Cid running. There was only one thought in his head. Get the hell out of the city. The kid didn't really move. He was strangely catatonic in Cid's arms, though he definitely weighed more than Cid thought. But Cid kept going. He pushed forward, running as fast as possible, dragging Denzel along until at last they reached the outskirts where Cid had his small airship waiting.

The drone buzzed along, still following Denzel's signal. Just as they neared the airship, a wave of monstrous creatures emerged from the dark city. Cid set the drone on self-destruct and plunged it directly into the horde, blowing bits and pieces of half-human limbs apart, affording him just enough time to toss Denzel onto the small ship and climb aboard himself. The take-off sequence was already primed, and they ascended within seconds, leaving the sea of clamoring creatures below. The ones with wings took flight, but eventually the speed of the ship was too much for them to overcome and they dropped off pursuit.

Cid exhaled and leaned back. Then he looked over at Denzel. The younger man lay on the floor behind the pilot's chair, eyes open but not moving. He creepily stared up at the ceiling, but at least Cid had succeeded. He'd gotten the kid out.

Now the only problem was finding Tifa and retrieving Yuffie. And reporting everything to Reeve. No doubt he would be furious. Cid set the controls on auto, which meandered a flightpath along a longer route back to the Fort to dissuade any stragglers from Edge from outright tracking the path.

The adrenaline was finally settling, and Cid found a new sensation shadowing his heart. He'd seen what Cloud had become, and he'd lost Yuffie. In his head, he'd always sorta thought Cloud was simply dead. After so many years, it just seemed logical despite what Tifa had claimed. Now it seemed things were far worse. Nearly overnight, all of their luck had changed. Losing one of their best agents and their enemy's tormented lover meant their numbers dwindled ever smaller. Despair was setting in. It would have been better if Cloud was simply dead.

Cid sighed, and his eyes rested on Denzel. He just had to hope they hadn't lost Denzel, too. Maybe the kid could be brought back into this world after all. And maybe he had some answers, anything, that could help win the fight.


	16. Across the Sea

\- Across the Sea -

* * *

Tifa knew she had to move fast if she was going to save Cloud. Already she could feel their embrace in the ruins of Sector Five fading from her memories like bits of nighttime fog in a sunny morning. She'd found Denzel's notebook in the attic, as Rufus had said, and inside were dozens of journal entries detailing what he referred to as 'the other world'. But it was Tifa's world, too, she realized with fervor. Denzel had clearly catalogued everything, even mentioning Tifa's despondent nature in Mideel, the frustrations of working with the WRO, the plan with Yuffie to get Cloud out. It had worked, Denzel wrote, for a brief second. Cloud had come to his senses but then everything fell apart once the man with black hair had shown up.

Zack, Tifa knew. Yes, he was the key, and she had to find Cloud and show him this notebook to prove that the other world was real. She could corroborate at least the broad strokes of world events, though the details of Yuffie's mission and the WRO wasn't something she'd know anyways. Cloud had no doubt already seen Denzel's writings, but maybe he just didn't have anyone else who believed him. Until now.

She found her phone and first tried dialing Cloud's number, the one she'd memorized from way before the calamity ever hit, but the number had been disconnected. So she called Barret, as Rufus had suggested, trying her best to ask all nonchalant about Cloud.

"I have something of his," she said, "Do you know where he is? His address. I could mail it to him, you know?"

After substantial back and forth, it became evident that Barret wouldn't help her. She was better off without Cloud and so he was doing her a favor, he'd said, by not telling her where he went. Defeated, she hung up. Then she noticed there were several calls made to and from her phone to a number she didn't recognize. The contact was listed as Rude.

Hesitantly, she called him. Were they friends in this version of things? If she was sleeping with Rufus Shinra, then perhaps anything was possible.

Rude picked up almost immediately.

"Tifa. How goes things?"

His voice was smooth and deep. She wasn't really sure what to say exactly. Ask about Cloud? Ask about Rufus? It was like treading lightly on cracking ice. She didn't want to disrupt much of this world in fear that the alien was somehow watching or controlling everything from afar. It occurred to her that maybe this place was where everyone under the calamity's powers went, collectively. This was what she had originally assumed, which meant that Rufus and Rude and even Denzel were here, trapped alongside her.

Or, a voice of logic reasoned in her head, everyone experiences a different reality. One tailor-made for that person. Maybe her Cloud isn't here at all. Maybe he never was nor will he ever be. It frightened her that the perfect alternate future (or past?) for her meant a life without Cloud. A life with a different handsome blonde.

No, keep it together, she ordered herself. Focus on finding him, then figure the rest out later. Finding him, she repeated to herself.

"Tifa, do you need help?" Rude's voice through the phone broke through her uncertainties.

She made small talk, asked about the weather, about how Rude's been. She didn't want to jump frantically into the subject of Cloud for fear of being shut down in exactly the way Barret had reacted. It soon became clear her and Rude were friends, perhaps even intimate at some point, and that Rude hated Rufus. He callously inquired if Rufus was still treating her right, if she needed help with anything, anything at all, he would be there in a moment.

"Well, there is one thing you can help me with," Tifa replied, putting a flirtatious edge in her tone. Whether these people were real or fake, none of what happened in this world really mattered, and so she would need to use whatever means necessary to carefully, covertly, find Cloud.

"Anything."

"Have you seen Cloud?"

Silence, then after a moment, "Yes, actually. I was in Gongaga last week on business."

Gongaga. He was living in Gongaga. She swallowed hard and steadied her voice. She made up a story about needing to give him some old things and did Rude know his address. This brightened up Rude's demeanor, as he began assuming that Tifa was potentially, maybe, getting sick of Rufus and would potentially, maybe, be rekindling a flame with Cloud.

"Not that I approve of him," he added briskly.

Tifa provided many thanks and hung up then took the very next airship across the ocean. Her heart hadn't stopped pounding, and she drank two beers during the flight to try and calm her nerves but it was no use. Time was running out. She read Denzel's journal a third time and ignored two calls from Rufus. Just checking in, each voicemail said in a sweet somewhat innocent voice. Maybe he wasn't an arrogant bratty monster in this reality, she thought, but it didn't matter. None of it mattered.

The airship touched down long after dusk. Gongaga was a bustling little town, and Tifa wandered past folks coming home from work or heading out to dinner and drinks, looking for the address on the paper in her hand. She finally found it. An unassuming apartment building on the edge of town was apparently where Cloud now lived.

She buzzed his apartment number, but there was no answer. She tried again, but knew it was futile. Clearly, he wasn't home. She sighed. But she would wait right here until he returned.

And so she sat on the stoop and waited. She waited until the streets thinned out and the moon shone clear and high above. All the businesses around were closed, and the restaurant down the block was hauling bags of trash out to the curb. Soon she was the only person on the street. Rufus called her again, but she still didn't pick up. Maybe Cloud had become a bartender, and so that would explain why he wouldn't come home until very late. Or maybe, she thought dismally, he was out of town. Maybe for work.

Just as she was about to give up and head to an inn for the evening, a lone figure came slowly walking home. She stood, hands clasped together over her chest, big smile on her face. Yes, this was definitely him. Except he seemed very tired. Exhausted, even.

He stumbled slightly, and when he saw her standing there in front of his building he completely halted.

"Oh no," he said, somewhat derisively, his voice slow, "Don't tell me. We're neighbors again."

His words completely threw her. She stammered for a second. "N-Neighbors? No, Cloud. It's me. It's Tifa. I...I found you!" She said it like he was supposed to catch onto her meaning and realize she'd done exactly what she'd told him she would do, but he just blinked at her and then let out a weird low laugh.

"Yeah. Neighbors. Like Nibelheim." But he'd completely slurred the last word and she realized he was drunk. He stepped past her and paused at the door, fumbling for his keys from his pocket. She watched him in disbelief.

"Cloud, I am… I was waiting here. For you."

Blearily, he glanced over at her and looked her up and down then nodded. "Yeah, I can see that." Then the keys slipped from his hands and he stood, wavering, on the stoop with one hand steadying himself on the doorframe and the other just trailing at his side, staring down at the fallen keyring.

"Are you...drunk?" She asked, though she already knew the answer was yes, very much so. She'd hardly ever seen him actually this inebriated.

"Don't you judge me," he snapped lazily, then he sighed. "What do you want?"

"Can I come in?"

"Does your boyfriend know you're here?" He'd said it with such disdain, pure contempt in each syllable.

She wasn't going to get anywhere with him in this condition, certainly not dive into a long meandering explanation of the other world and the alien and the real true horror of being trapped somewhere not real and, of course the real problem, how they were going to get out. All of that would have to wait because Cloud was bending over and struggling to pick up his keys. It was painful to see him like this.

Finally, she smoothed her skirt and resolved to wait until morning to even begin explaining a single thing to him. She walked over, picked up the keys, examined them briefly before determining the style that would likely fit into the very lock and then unlocked the door for him.

Cloud didn't even thank her and just walked in. She followed. With any luck, he'd actually make it to his apartment. He trudged up three flights of stairs then staggered to the door at the very end of the hall. She helped him open this door, too, and once the door was open he turned to her in the hallway.

"You wanna come inside?" he asked like it was a very brilliant plan, then added after a second, "But it's not clean. I'm sorry. I didn't know you were gonna visit me. Why would you ever visit me?"

She told him she didn't care and pushed them both into the apartment. The place was small, cramped, but actually tidy. A happy chirp greeted them. She looked around in surprise. A baby chocobo was in a pen taking up about a third of the meager living room.

"Oh," Cloud realized he had to explain, "I found him abandoned. Just a lil' baby in the street. Who would do such a thing? Leave a poor defenseless creature like that? So I thought I would take care of him just until he's big enough to take care of himself. I don't know."

He drunkenly walked over to the makeshift pen and patted the tiny bird on the head. It warbled happily. Then he opened a nearby satchel and retrieved a handful of grains, putting them down in the bowl in the pen. The space was astonishingly clean, and the chick looked up at her hopefully, expecting affection from her as well.

"He's so cute," Cloud gushed, then smiled over at Tifa and she thought her heart would melt. Of course Cloud would have a big enough heart to do something like this, but not actually think through what he would do once the chocobo got bigger. Clearly the apartment was not meant for cohabitation of any kind, and he'd likely need to get rid of the animal soon. He turned to her and put his hands on his hips, changing his tone. "I'll be honest with you, Tif. I'm a little bit tipsy right now, but you are of course welcome to stay the night. With me. I mean..." He motioned to the couch in the room. "I will sleep out here and you can stay in my bed."

But she was done watching this bizarre episode.

She leaned over to him and grabbed his shirt and pulled him to her. Before she hardly realized it, they were kissing. The surprise in his lips was obvious at first, then his resistance vanished and he held her tight, passionately falling into the dizzying taste and scent of her. Two fingers traced the edge of her jaw, just like always, and suddenly nothing else mattered. It was like being with him all over again, back in the days before the calamity, years ago. A lifetime ago. This was him. The other half that she'd known was trapped somewhere. And he filled her senses.

Then he was moving her. They went into his bedroom, and she felt a soft blanket beneath her and his body above her. Suddenly he stopped. In the dim light spilling in from the living room, she saw his face close to hers. Those eyes that she knew and loved so much were peering straight into her.

"Is your boyfriend going to kill me?" he asked in a mildly serious tone. "Shinra…"

"He isn't my boyfriend," she couldn't help but reply, wanting nothing more than to resume feeling his skin against hers.

But Cloud slumped next to her on the bed, curling up like he was having a bad dream. He squeezed his eyes shut. Tifa, dismayed, faced him, touching her forehead against his. Something awful was going on in his head, she could feel it.

"Cloud?" she asked after several minutes of silence.

The voice that came from him was distant, slurred, and filled with intense despair.

"I don't even know what's real anymore, Tif…" He let out a breath. "I don't…"

Then he became quiet and she realized he'd fallen asleep. He'd been in this other world for so much longer than she had, no wonder he was barely holding it together. To live in two places at once, to exist in multiple timelines with memories from both, was incomprehensible. Surely, it was enough to drive someone mad. But no, she'd focus and remember and bring him home. Somehow, the alien hadn't entirely suffocated her yet, so that must mean they had a chance. Maybe Cloud was protecting her back in the rainy ruins of Edge.

Or maybe, a sinister voice played with her head, he's lying right next to you and you don't want to admit that all of this feels far more real than anything on the other side ever did. At least here, she could be with him. Here she could feel him and touch him and truly be together.

It was a nice comforting little thought, and it drifted along with her as she eased off into sleep, still pressed up against him.


	17. Sinking

\- Sinking -

* * *

She didn't sleep well. Every hour or so she woke in a spring of panic until she felt Cloud next to her in the quiet dark bedroom and the security of his presence drowned her back to sleep like a heavy sedative.

Then suddenly, it was morning. And Cloud was no longer right there.

"You still drink your coffee black, right?"

Tifa opened one eye, head thick with exhaustion. He stood next to the bed, showered and fully dressed. A mug of hot coffee was on the nightstand, evidently for her. He was totally recovered from the night before. A convenient perk of the nearly indestructible alien cells fused with his own, she reasoned. Regenerating constantly. Alien cells... the words rolled over in her mind, vying for attention. She stirred sleepily.

"I have to go to work," he continued, putting on a jacket. There was a WRO patch on the arm but it wasn't exactly the one that she was familiar with. "Feel free to make yourself at home. I'll be back in a few hours."

The sudden threat of him disappearing, even temporarily, made her queasy, and in a flash she remembered her mission. The alien. The destroyed city. Finding him. Saving him.

"No, wait." Her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. "Don't go. Please."

He gave her a long apprehensive look, but did not pull away. "Look, I'm sorry about last night. I'll make it up to you...if you're still here when I return."

She didn't release him. "No, Cloud, it's not about last night. I just… Please don't go."

He watched her warily, then let out a long sigh. "Okay. What's happened, Tif? I know that tone."

She breathed out. This was it. She had come this far and now she had to convince him that none of this world was real. She had to hope the man standing near her was really the missing piece of the Cloud she'd seen in the ruins, and that somehow, in some way, she could convince him to wake up. But the words were caught in her throat. She stared at the WRO patch on his arm. It was all the wrong colors, and the images seemed weaponry based.

"I…" She finally found her voice and looked into his eyes. "I need to tell you something, and I know it's going to sound crazy, but you need to trust me. You do still trust me, right?"

"After all we've been through…" There was an almost comedic pause, then, "Yes. I do."

She began calmly. "I'm not the Tifa you know. I'm not the same woman who's been in your life, or not in your life as it seems, for the past ten years. In fact, I've only actually seen you twice in eight years."

The concern on his face began evaporating.

"Huh. Is that so?" A flicker of anger went through his voice.

"Yes, none of this is real," she went on steadily, "None of me is real here. This," she held their grasped hands up, "this isn't real."

He glared at her, then tore his hand away. "No. Don't you do this to me. Don't you dare pull this on me."

"Wh-what?"

"You know damn well how I feel about you and you chose to break it off. And yet every time you show up at my doorstep looking for a late night fuck, you know I always let you in, and I always keep you safe from whatever bullshit your new little boyfriend wants to get into."

"Wait, Clo-"

"So don't you dare say none of this is real. You know every bit of what you've been toying with here is real. I've been trying to give you space. I've been trying to move on. I went across the fucking ocean because you said it was too hard for you with me living closeby in Edge. Yet still you show up here, wanting whatever you want. I don't even know anymore what you want."

"Wait, stop, stop." She held both hands up in defense, trying to wrap her head around what he'd just told her. "You thought I came here last night to sleep with you? You mean, we're still…doing that?"

Cloud went completely silent and just stared at her with a deathly harshness she'd never seen before. In fact, she'd never seen him this angry at all. Not in all their years together. His emotions and attitude was amplified here. From the inebriation she'd witnessed last night and now the obvious fury he was leaning towards, this version of Cloud was indeed the split she was looking for and it began to make sense.

While the Cloud she'd seen in the rainy ruins had been cold, distant, detached, this Cloud was intense, exaggerated, and vibrant. She'd found his other half, and maybe everyone in this false world was simply the trapped emotional parts of their minds, leaving their bodies empty and free to remain easily under the alien's control. No resistance. The whole illusion was so easy. Keep everyone hotly infused with meaningless drama and the real world slips by, controlled by something far more sinister. A puppetmaster.

And he was a puppet once again. They all were.

"Cloud…" The horror of it all struck her hard.

"Yes, we are sleeping together," he spat the words, "But let me guess. That's not real either. Or do you pretend it's not real to feel better about yourself. Are you guilty over what you've done to me? To us?"

"Cloud…" She could see it all, the whole world fighting and squabbling over who was fucking who and whose heart was broken or not. It terrified her that some version of her had played such a hard part it had nearly broken Cloud entirely.

"You know what? You can go now." He crossed his arms over his chest and motioned towards the door. "Just leave. Next time you come to my door in the middle of the night, I'm not going to let you in. I'm not going to…" Then his shoulders sagged and he swallowed hard. Within seconds his demeanor changed, swept into a sad state of resignation. "Oh, who am I kidding? I can never turn my back on you. And that's why you keep doing this to me. This isn't healthy, Tif. You said it yourself years ago. We can't keep doing this."

"Cloud, stop." She kept trying to get his attention, the sick revelation still curling its fingers around her thoughts, but he was now completely despondent.

"I don't know why I keep doing this to myself," he carried on, "I just have a damn weakness for you. That much is clear. I can never say no to you."

"I love you," she said. It was a reaction. A way to cut through his endless speech. And it worked. He stopped cold and looked at her, full of something close to fear.

"...What did you just say?" His voice was a scratchy whisper.

"I said I love you," she repeated and stood, taking his hands again. "That's why I'm here. That's the only reason I'm here. To wake you up. I'm not here to toy with you...or fuck you or whatever has been going on between us. Please, just listen."

He seemed on the cusp between anger and sorrow, easily dipping into either at a second's notice.

"The first time I saw you," she said, feeling his attention rapt on her, "after you left me, was in the ruins of Edge. It was early morning. You were surrounded by these awful creatures. I hugged you and kissed you and begged you to stay. You told me to go. You grabbed me by the throat and threw me aside." She paused because his expression had dissolved into total shock, then she added, "Do you remember that?"

He did, but it was impossible. That dream had been so long ago, and he was absolutely sure he'd never told it to her. He'd all but forgotten it until she'd just now brought it up, and the details came surging back fast. The smell of burnt ash still hung in the air of the destroyed building, and Tifa...she'd been standing there with eyes full of hope. Pure happiness at seeing him again.

"Cloud?"

"How could you possibly know that?" he breathed out.

"Because it really happened. You did that to me."

"No. That's… It wasn't real. I woke up from that."

"No, Cloud. This place is the dream. What you saw on the other side is reality. That's where I'm from. That's why I'm not the Tifa you've known here. Please. You must believe me."

It looked like he was about to, then he wavered. "You're just… you're…" But he couldn't find the words to supplement the sudden void of anger. He sat down on the bed, nauseous, dizzy. There'd always been a piece of him, way down inside, that held onto the idea that his dreams were somehow more than just dreams. And that Denzel's death was somehow not really the end of life. That the place he kept feeling just on the other side of things was real and tangible somewhere. Somehow.

"Who are you?" He turned to her suddenly. "If you're not the Tifa I know, then who are you? And where is she?"

This was where she had to tell the worst of it.

"I'm only a part of her, just as you are only a part of yourself here. The rest of us, you and me both, are together on another plane of existence. In Edge. The real Edge. A city destroyed and thriving with thousands of mutilated husks of human beings. A second calamity fell from the skies, and you disappeared from me. I've been searching for you ever since…" She caught the emotion before it heightened. "I've been searching for you for years, Cloud. Over a decade."

He sat very still for very long, watching her. Carefully, she touched his cheek, his jaw.

"Your body is somewhere else. This is just...this is all just in our heads," she tried explaining and dove onward, "Yesterday I found you in Edge for the second time in eight years. You asked me to leave. You told me the alien moves through physical touch, and you didn't want me trapped here with you. I didn't care, and I held you close because I knew I could find you and bring you back."

He remembered this, too. A sudden distinct memory of a dream came tumbling from the folds of uncertainty, solidifying into the horror her story presented. But that had been so long ago. Not yesterday, like she'd said.

"I don't have much time," Tifa continued briskly, "I think the longer anyone is here, the more they lose a grasp on the other side."

He was staring off, lost in the possibility that her words brought. That he wasn't crazy after all. All those moments of fleeting sanity, of losing her and Denzel and always being just out of reach of something unseen, were constructed elements purposefully built to confuse him.

"Cloud," her voice brought him back, "I don't know who this other woman was with you all these years, but I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for whatever's happened here to you. But I'm here now, and we need to find a way out. We need to get back to our reality."

Then an awful thought popped into his mind. The other world was the place Denzel had spoken of, too. Maybe the insidious thoughts that had driven the boy to suicide were now manifesting themselves in his beloved Tifa, too. Maybe it really was insanity. There was no proof otherwise, except for her uncanny knowledge of just two particular dreams he'd had.

"You're here with me? Now? For good?" Cloud ventured, still unsure.

Tifa nodded happily and brought their clasped hands over her heart.

"Then why go back at all?" he continued, "Why go back to this other world that's so awful? We are here, together, aren't we? And if you're willing to stay with me and patch things up in our relationship, then we can simply have what we want."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Because it's not real." Wasn't that enough? But she had to remember this was the emotional extreme of him, and now he was afraid. Of losing her, perhaps. "Here, look," she said, "I'll show you. It's all written down. Denzel kept a notebook. The alien said it had taken Denzel so he must've been here. Did you see him?"

"Tifa…" He struggled for a moment to find the right words. "He...he killed himself. Because of this other world. You know this. Or you should, at any rate."

It hit her like a sack of bricks. "What? He…?" So what did that mean? She scrambled to comprehend.

Cloud continued flatly, "He's been dead for many years. That's why you left me. Well, it was one reason, I guess."

But she'd literally just spoken to Denzel on the phone a few days ago. She felt like an intruder in some nonsensical place that didn't correspond to anything in the real world. Denzel had somehow woken up in the past here, many years in the past. And she'd woken up in the future…

She threw the notion aside and focused on Cloud. This was all a trick, of course, to get her to leave Cloud behind. To give up. She looked around the room and spotted her backpack on the floor. "Here," she repeated and dug out the notebook. Frantically she opened it and flipped through the pages then thrust it into Cloud's hands. "Read it. Read any of it, you'll see he wrote down all the details of the other world. It's real, Cloud. You'll see."

He gave her a skeptical look. "Tif, I've looked at it before." But he took it from her hands nevertheless and leafed through a page or two before sighing and returning it to her hands. "It's nothing but scribbles. There are no words in here. See?"

She looked down at the page. There, scrawled in half-congruent lettering, was a series of symbols she'd never seen before. Indecipherable. Full of fright she gazed up at Cloud, who was simply eyeing her curiously.

For the first time in her life, Tifa felt like she was going crazy.


	18. Parasite

\- Parasite -

* * *

Vincent couldn't get a clear shot. The moment Tifa left, he drew his gun and kept his sights trained on Cloud. In the intermittent flashes of lightning from the storm, he could still see the motionless blonde leaning beneath the awning below, seemingly staring off at the ruins of the church. Tifa had insisted on going alone, much to Vincent's dismay, but now that she'd disappeared along a path to approach Cloud, Vincent found he couldn't keep a clear shot on the man. His hands had begun shaking and his vision was blurring in and out.

The damage Zack had done to his wing while in Chaos form was more severe than he thought. It bled along his side as a long deep cut down to his thigh, and Vincent limped slightly as he moved along the ridge, trying to get a better angle. He spotted Tifa entering the building, directly behind the still-unmoving swordsman. She neared Cloud and the blonde glanced back at her over his shoulder. They seemed to be talking or arguing. Then Cloud moved towards her, eclipsing out of view, and the pair could no longer be seen. Vincent inhaled with pain, continuing forward, eyes locked on the vacant awning.

But as he rounded the corner, the section of that building appeared empty.

Suddenly, she was gone. Vincent scrambled down, but somehow between the extra time it took him to move and the storm kicking up debris, he'd lost track of her and him. The two lovers separated by both years and design. Cloud could never be saved, Vincent knew. Those held by Jenova for such an extended time were never the same again.

"It's not Jenova."

Vincent spun at the sound of the voice. A familiar, pretty voice. One he hadn't heard clearly in decades. Beyond decades.

"Lucrecia…"

She stood behind him, as beautiful as he'd last remembered her. Unmarred, unlike the other aberrations, she wore white and blue though the dress was dotted with mud. Long dark hair spun in a braid and she regarded Vincent with kind soulful eyes.

"You are surprised to see me," she spoke softly, "I felt you through the calamity's touch. You injured him. Well, Chaos injured him. I recognized it, and I came to find you."

Vincent breathed out. She wasn't real, she couldn't be. The alien must've done something to his head. He tried to look away, to find Cloud and Tifa, but the storm swelled around him and suddenly he found he'd lost which direction he'd been going. His side bled badly.

"You're wounded. Vincent, you must leave this place. It is too strong even for you."

She seemed so real, so pure. A vision out of a dream. His dreams. Suddenly, the rain began to let up.

"What do you mean?" Vincent asked warily, "You said it's not Jenova. What is it?"

He wanted to touch her, to feel her and know she was real. Her presence clouded his head like a virus. A thousand emotions spawned beneath his skin, and he felt himself walking towards her.

"I've spent most of my life studying Jenova," she said, "and this thing is not it. This is something far worse."

"Worse?"

"Yes. It can manipulate and control Jenova cells, but its not the same. Not even close. I suspect this calamity is a sort of parasite. It poses as Jenova, captures it, then subjugates it."

A parasite. The news took him aback. Everyone had long thought the alien was simply a more advanced form of Jenova, given that Cloud had disappeared into it nearly immediately.

Lucrecia went on, "Jenova is the most resilient life form on this planet, so it makes sense that the parasite would choose it as a host. It has, after all, systematically sought out and subdued those with Jenova cells."

"...And you?"

She smiled, a sad little thing. "I no longer fight it. I've given up long ago, and so there's no reason to keep me in the other world."

"Other world?" Vincent was having a hard time keeping up. "What other world?"

She didn't reply. She seemed lost in some deep troubling thought. The clouds above were parting and glimpses of light shone down, casting eerie shadows on his love's face. She looked even more spectral than before.

"This place, this other world," he continued, "How do I get to it?"

"There's no way back."

"But you got back."

"I accepted my place here."

It didn't make sense, and Vincent frantically began to worry that it was a distraction to purposefully drive him away from Tifa. He looked for any indication of where Tifa had gone, but the maze spiraled around him, indecipherable.

"Can you leave this place?" he asked Lucrecia, "Come with me."

She shook her head. "No. I no longer live in two worlds. This is where I belong now."

"Please, Lucrecia… You can help us."

"I already am," she replied and began moving away, "Don't you see?" She turned and vanished fast into the ruins.

"No, wait!" Madly he tore after her, suddenly determined to stay as close to her as possible. She'd been such a warm welcome presence, and even if she wasn't real he simply wanted to stay with her for just a moment longer. Just one more moment.

His side burned and bled as he trudged along. Lucrecia was always two steps ahead, just out of reach, a ghostly pale wisp between the shadows. Tifa and Cloud were no longer anywhere near his mind, he only wanted to reach Lucrecia. To feel her again, perhaps. She'd been so close, why hadn't he just reached out? Why had he doubted the reality of her at all and not made any sort of move? Why hadn't he at least said something meaningful to her?

Suddenly, she was gone. He turned the corner of a wrecked avenue and she was simply gone. He called out for her, took several paces in all directions looking for her, but it was no use. And now he was in an entirely unfamiliar section of the city, bleeding badly. The running had aggravated the slice in his side and blood poured warm down his leg. How long had he been chasing her? Judging by the diminishing light it was fading towards early evening.

"No, I have to get back to Tifa." He gritted his teeth and steadied himself on a rusted out car.

Then his eyes spotted something amiss in the environment, barely a scratch of movement. A woman crawled incredibly slow, facedown in the mud, bright bandana around her hair, and he recognized her nearly at once.

Leaping to his feet, he rushed over to Yuffie and helped her up. Her knees were scraped and bleeding, and her teeth were chattering. With a trace of despair, Vincent realized Denzel was no longer with her, and that surely meant their mission had failed. Whatever they'd run into, it had nearly killed Yuffie. Perhaps Lucrecia had indeed brought him here for a reason.

He stood Yuffie up and watched her eyes glaze over as she stared past him. There was something wrong with her, and he had to get her back to the Fort quickly. He was in no condition to fight, and Lucrecia's warning about the alien resounded in his head. If nothing else, he could bring this information back to Reeve and come back for Tifa later. Hopefully she was right about Cloud, and the psychotic blonde hadn't cut her apart as he had any other WRO agent who'd been unfortunate enough to run into him.

Taking Yuffie in his arms, Vincent painfully moved towards the outskirts of the city. She was nearly unconscious, and the extra weight exacerbated his injury, but he kept going. He only needed Chaos to heal just a little bit more in order for him to transform and take flight effectively. He wouldn't be able to fight, but at least he could move them faster that way.

The storm was over, and as far as Vincent was aware, everyone had failed. Tifa was gone, Yuffie was a mess, and Denzel had vanished. The undercurrent of anxiety and loss that had always ran beneath the surface of everyone's skin at the WRO resurged fresh and violent in Vincent. This whole plan had been a mistake, and it was best to just leave the city altogether and stop this meaningless fight. They'd already lost too many, and now, nearly losing Yuffie too, had put him over the edge.

As he left the city in the dreary aftermath of the day, he promised he'd return for Tifa but nothing else. This necropolis was only poison.


	19. Beneath the Mirror

\- Beneath the Mirror -

* * *

"You have to believe me," Tifa was saying, her eyes moving frantically back and forth between Cloud's. It was impossible. The pages had been filled with descriptions of her world, of the other side. There had been lengthy details, drawings even in some cases. Images of the half-formed creatures scurrying through the ruins, and a gleaming sword in the rain. "Fuck!" Tifa screamed and threw the book aside, then grabbed Cloud's arm. "You have to believe me! I'm not making it up, it was all there!"

Cloud still looked at her uncertainly. "Tif… Those were the same things that Denzel was saying. The day before he…" he trailed off into a sigh. "I… don't know what to say."

"It's true, though," Tifa kept going, "The needles..." She scrambled, desperately raking her mind for any other memories of Cloud that Denzel had written down. But nobody had ever seen Cloud, aside from her and Denzel, so there was literally only one more possible thing this Cloud could remember. "The needles," she repeated, keeping her voice steady, "Denzel had written about a mission. Some secret that he and Yuffie had, trying to free you. In the rain," then she caught her breath and realized, "This had to have been only a few days ago…" She pulled Cloud to her and examined his arm. "Yuffie jabbed six needles in your arm and you woke up. For just a moment on the other side, you woke up, and you saw them, didn't you?"

She was in a hopeless mental state, that much was obvious to Cloud. But her words itched at something in his head. A distant memory. Yes, that's right. He'd blacked out at the bar that one day, and Yuffie… He looked down at his arm. The six tiny scars remained. His skin had bubbled up like an allergy afterwards, spreading halfway up his arm. The origin marks remained for years after Denzel's death.

Tifa realized she was winning. Slowly, surely, Cloud's expression was shifting from doubt to desire. He wanted to believe her, she could see it. He wanted it more than anything.

"Yes, Cloud, that was real. That moment in the rain that Denzel wrote about was actually you waking up on the other side."

He exhaled, processing everything. If she was wrong, and merely delusional, then he had to stick close to her to ensure she didn't hurt herself trying to get back to this other world like Denzel had. If she was right, and he was trapped in an illusionary circus, then he had to stick close to her to figure out how to get out. Either way, he couldn't lose her. And if nothing else, being together with her again was what he wanted the most. Even if nothing else was true, at the very least she still loved him and maybe whatever had troubled their relationship in the past could now fall away and they could once more be together unhindered. He held her hand, moving her palm away from the ridge of pinpoint scars on his forearm. Six, exactly as she'd said.

"Okay, Tif." He didn't know what else to say.

She nodded rapidly, breaking into a smile and moving onto her next strategic point. She dove into rapid detail, making her best guesses at the expanse of otherworldly knowledge she'd obtained from Zack when he'd touched her. The form he'd taken meant nothing to Cloud. He knew the name, of course, but he insisted that Zack had short blonde hair, not black. It didn't matter, though. Tifa realized the calamity was muddling Cloud's memories up on purpose, maybe trying to further prevent him from ever accessing any link back to the real world.

As she spoke to him, she could see he'd been suffocating here. It was a like a breath of fresh air, filling his lungs and rejuvenating his body. He wanted to know everything she could offer, though she admitted she didn't know much. The alien's willpower extended through a radius from the crash site, bending any unfortunate humans nearby under its influence. They twisted into cruel beasts and flocked to Edge. Nobody knew how they were sustaining themselves, but somehow a neverending population of them swarmed the city. And the calamity himself was never seen, except by her and Vincent and Tseng.

And when she'd seen the alien, it had done something to her. Seeped under her skin, made her see awful things.

"It wanted me to stay, to join you and Denzel. The Jenova cells are what its after. Any trace of them."

"...And you?"

Tifa squirmed. "I'm not really sure. It thought you and I had a link."

Cloud smiled, but only for a brief flash. "It said to join me? Hmm, so it _has_ me."

She hesitated. "Yes," she cleared her throat and calmly added, "Unfortunately."

"Am I…?" He wasn't sure how to ask it. Dangerous was the first word that came to mind.

"Yes," Tifa answered immediately.

"Oh."

She didn't need to say any more. He knew exactly what she was implying and it correlated with the majority of restless images he'd seen in his dreams, of him cutting people apart. Then he moved on, asking more about other dreams he'd had, about Denzel. The boy was still alive, as far as Tifa knew, though he was of course not a boy anymore. It was difficult for Cloud to grasp.

Tifa acknowledged that she didn't know much about the alien, aside from what she'd gathered during their brief encounter, when it grabbed her arm and shared contact. The whole network of its influence had lit up in her head for a second, and that's how she was able to find Cloud. Near the Sector Five ruins.

But time was running out.

"The longer I'm here the less I'm able to remember," she confessed, "I think that's why I can't read the journal anymore. We need to move fast and-"

A knock on the apartment door sounded, loud and angry.

Tifa froze. Cloud looked down at the door, visible through the hall outside the bedroom, then back at her. "Don't answer it," she hissed quietly, but he was already standing and approaching as the person on the other side knocked again, more furiously.

"Yeah?" Cloud opened the door then actually let out a disdainful laugh. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Strife." It was Rufus' voice.

"Oh, I see you still remember my name."

"And I bet you'll never forget mine."

Cloud didn't respond.

Rufus let out a chuckle, then cleared his throat. "Tifa is here, I believe. At least that's what the tracker on her phone last reported. So there's no use in hiding or pretending. Just give her back to me and I'll pretend this never happened."

"No."

"What do you mean 'no'?" Rufus lowered his voice and jutted a finger towards Cloud menacingly. "You know, I've been extremely patient with her during this whole messy break-up that you two have been having for the past few years. So I think you should show a little respect to the guy who's been letting you fuck his girlfriend all this time."

Cloud shifted.

"Yeah, that's right," Rufus continued, "I know all about your little late night escapades, but she always comes home to me. She spends her days with me. You know why, Strife? Because I'm not a fucking loser who can barely hold a job together. What, is this the third time I've had to put in a good word for you at the WRO? So show some damn respect and most importantly, hand Tifa over."

She couldn't bear to listen any longer. It was all just a distraction anyways. Her and Cloud were finally making progress on what really mattered, so of course something superfluous had to pop up to slow them down. If anything, it was proof that this designed world was a purposeful maze.

"Seems she didn't come home to you last night, Rufus," Cloud said, "Guess she's not as interested in spending her days with you as you thought. So stop bothering me and run on home to whatever failing business you're in charge of now. And if you ever show up at my door again…"

"A threat? Oh, that's cute." Rufus laughed. "She'll just leave you again. You know this. Why bother with the theatricals? Threats are really not your thing. You are just too...hmm, bland."

Tifa left the bedroom and tiptoed down the hall, staying out of sight from the door.

 _Get rid of him_ , she mouthed anxiously to Cloud. He saw her then quickly brought his eyes back to Rufus.

"Look, she's not here. She was last night, but I guess her phone died or whatever. She's not here anymore. Probably back at the bar. Did you even try looking in her room? I bet she won't let you sleep in there with her."

But the obnoxious back and forth only infuriated Tifa more. This dramatic love triangle was something she wanted no part of, though Cloud seemed all too happy to spar. She had to focus on the rainy city, the real Cloud wrapping his arms around her, the notebook of Denzel's filled with pages of writings. She couldn't lose sight of what was really important.

She stared at Cloud, pleading him to just close the damn door and eventually Rufus would leave and they could get back to business. Cloud noticed and stopped smirking.

"Forget it, Rufus. Nothing is real anyways." Then he slammed the door in the other man's face.

Rufus howled angrily and knocked again and again, but he soon realized he was making a scene and with a final disparaging remark, departed. Tifa listened until his footsteps were gone. For some reason, she felt bad, like maybe a part of her in this life actually recognized that she did care for him. She'd had a relationship with him, and he meant something to her. Nevermind, she pushed the thoughts away as quickly as they surfaced, careful not to fall into any emotional traps. It was thin ice here suddenly.

Cloud had gone over to the baby chocobo's pen, petting the tiny thing who'd gotten frightened from all the commotion. The little animal warked nervously and hopped into Cloud's palm, fitting perfectly.

"Oh, look, Tif." Cloud held up the bird, excited as a child. "He's blue!"

There were indeed tufts of blue feathers growing in under the yellow fluff.

"Very cute," she conceded. It warbled at her in response. She'd forgotten how small and adorable baby chocobos were.

No, she reminded herself, this is all a distraction.

"Cloud, we need to stay focused," she said.

"Right," he replied, still petting the chocobo. "So this is all fake. The real me is somewhere in the rain, and hopefully you're with me."

"Yes."

"Great. How do we get back?"

Except she had no idea. She'd been so concerned with finding Cloud that she just somehow assumed that waking him up would be easy, or that it would at the very least end most of the troubles on the other side, in the real world.

"Hmm, well. I still think Zack is the key element here," she reasoned, "It's the form the alien has taken in the real world, likely how it even got close enough to you in the first place, and now you can't seem to actually remember what he looks like. So maybe that's where we start. I'm sure we'll figure out how to get back. There must be a way."

Yes, Cloud thought to himself, there must be a way. Except didn't Denzel prove there was no way back? Wasn't that what he was trying to do? Or was it really just an accident? And now here was Tifa, back in his life again, determined and beautiful and he could just stay here forever with her. If they couldn't find a way back, of course.

Nothing was certain. All Cloud knew was that for the first time in a long time, he no longer felt alone. And that was worth more than anything.


	20. The Beginning of the End

\- The Beginning of the End -

* * *

"There's nothing we can do," Reeve said, frowning, "He's not responded to any treatments. We can't keep him here."

Cid pounded a fist on the conference table, furious. "Well, keep trying! He was responsive in Edge. He was standing there and he looked at me…" He paused for emphasis. "The kid smiled right at Cloud. That fucking phantom is real, Reeve. He's still alive!"

Reeve lit a cigarette and paused, watching Cid. "You're sure you saw Cloud?"

Elena huffed and interjected, raising a hand, "Of course he saw Cloud! Denzel is linked to that damn thing and that's why we didn't want him going into Edge. But obviously he disobeyed and now that goddamn alien has infested him and he's going to lead Cloud right back to us. I just know it. We need to get rid of him."

Cid glared at her in absolute disgust. "Get rid of him? He isn't a thing to be discarded. We need to protect him, find a way to reverse whatever's -"

"There's no way to reverse it," Elena countered angrily, "There's no fucking way or else we would've figured that out already with Tseng. It's over for Denzel. He's seen the calamity, obviously, and now he's linked. But he's especially linked to Cloud, which is why it's too dangerous for him to be here."

Cid sighed in frustration. Reeve and Elena were always a united front. "Then what do you propose we do, huh?" Cid inhaled his own cigarette deeply. "I mean, fuck. He's just a kid."

"A kid with lethal allies now," Elena reminded him coldly.

"Well, what about Tifa?" Cid went on.

"What about her?" Reeve now spoke up. "I've warned her several times to stay out of Edge. I can't be responsible for her now."

Cid looked back and forth between the two, incredulous. "I don't believe you. I can't believe you're so easy to give up."

"Give up?!" Reeve snapped furiously, "I've done everything I could! I've given direct orders, I've done careful recon, I've tried planning and plotting and carefully making progress, but people made reckless choices and now everything is fucked up!"

Ash hung from the cigarette in his fingers. The room fell silent. Reeve hadn't yelled like that in a while.

"Is that what you want to hear?" Reeve continued, pointing accusingly at Cid, "That everything is fucked up. That I fucked up? Well, I did and it is. We're no closer to discovering anything more about the alien and now we've lost two of our best agents. Yuffie is an incoherent mess, and Denzel is a comatose wreck. And Tifa is… probably dead by now to be honest, and forget Cloud. He's been gone. And now we're even further behind than we were before!"

Elena nodded and glared across the room at Cid through the haze of smoke. Reeve finally let out a breath along with a short little sad laugh.

"I can't afford to lose anyone else, Cid," Reeve spoke softer now, back in control, "We are already down to bare bones here. Denzel was my last resort to possibly saving Cloud and now that he's a liability, we can't keep him here. We know nothing. We're still in the goddamn dark, and I just can't let us fall any deeper." He took a breath of his cigarette then added, "I'm sorry."

Cid stood up from the table, eyeing the two ex-ShinRa like a man who'd just discovered the source of a vile plague. "You're the fucking problem here," he spat, "We should've never listened to you when you wanted to run and hide. We should've been using Denzel from the start to try and rescue Cloud instead of tuck him away like a hidden weapon. And now we have a means to get back into the city -"

Reeve rolled his eyes, interrupting loudly, "There's no viable method of testing that Jenovite serum this quickly. We have no idea if it will work or for how long. Yuffie's condition only proves that!"

Cid crossed his arms and leaned back.

It was general consensus that Yuffie was only alive and intact due to the duplicative serums running through her bloodstream while she was in Edge. Since both her and Denzel had returned to the Fort in such drastically altered states, everyone assumed they must've run into the calamity directly. The behavior they both exhibited, though wildly different, was unlike anything the WRO had seen before. Denzel was unresponsive. His body seemed fine, but his higher brain functions were non-existent. Curiously, Cid said the young man was ambulatory in the city, which meant that the alien or maybe Cloud had been controlling him directly. Here, at the Fort, the boy might as well have been dead.

And Yuffie… she'd improved a bit since Vincent first brought her in, going from utter silence to small moments of babbling insanity, but overall they'd kept her on a steady IV drip of protective serum in the hopes that she'd recover. She'd at the very least been under the fluids when she'd first entered the city, so she was believed to be in a much better spot than Tseng ever was.

Vincent hardly left her side. The wound he'd sustained at the alien's touch was not healing fully. It had mended enough for Chaos to resume its willfully requested dominance when necessary, but the overall damage was simply too much, and Reeve worried that it would be permanent. Maybe the man would never be the same again. A crippled monster.

Yet still Cid and Vincent continued to push for one last mission into Edge to retrieve Tifa. Strife's old crew was a resilient headstrong bunch, having survived so much trauma together in the past, and they were devoted to one another in ways Reeve couldn't fully comprehend. His loyalties had been to so many different people in the past, he didn't see how emotions could interfere with logic on something as clear-cut as this. Edge was a graveyard, and with the information Vincent had brought back, the situation only drew more dire.

A type of extraterrestrial parasite that roamed the stars and hunted down powerful hosts…

Reeve sighed and rubbed his eyes with one hand.

Split into fragments and nearly destroyed, Jenova cells on the planet were significantly weakened, which made it the perfect target for a subversive predator. At least, that's what Vincent believed. The only problem was that the idea of a parasite-infested Jenova was exponentially more terrifying than the original headless mother herself, and once Reeve was aware of this startling theory, he became even more withdrawn and strategically defensive.

Gathering information was always a key critical part of moving the WRO into the Fort to begin with, but now this was too much. And they had to get out.

Suddenly, a klaxon wailed overhead. The perimeter alarm.

"Fuck!" Reeve shouted, "What now!?"

"Guess they found Denzel…" Elena said dryly.

Reeve huffed then tore out of the room, pushing Cid aside.

The commotion in the halls kicked into gear as the last remaining WRO soldiers and families were armed and rushing towards the defense lines. They'd all seen the sickly agent, Denzel, being carried back weeks ago, and now the things had found them. It didn't take long to put two and two together. A fanatical sense of dread hung in the air, as if everyone knew this was the end of the line. Reeve brushed past several soldiers, trying to get towards the lookout up top.

Through the dusty shaft, Reeve climbed, and when he reached at last the lookout and pulled the binoculars from the hook near the ledge, his heart dropped. Through the scoped lenses he saw the one person he thought he'd never see, approaching on the far ridge to the north. A silhouette of a familiar sword and dirty blonde hair. And a horde of shadows following.

He stumbled backwards, dropping the binoculars, shaking.

"N-No."

He rushed back down the ladder in a daze. All around him the soldiers were mobilizing, yet he could barely move. It all felt unreal. This was really it. With Vincent injured, Yuffie still recovering, and Denzel comatose, that only left himself, Elena, Cid, and Barret along with less than seventy trained soldiers, though he suspected Barret would soon take Marlene and get the fuck out. Which is really what Reeve should be doing, too.

He moved forward slowly, feeling the rush of adrenaline and tension all around him like a fog. Yes, he should be going. Leaving this place. Soon it would be full of death. And horrors. It hit him like a bullet in the chest.

Then Barret suddenly filled his vision, turning the corner in a hurry.

"Reeve!"

Glassy distant eyes looked up at Barret.

"Pull it together, man!"

A big hand was on Reeve's shoulder. A supportive gesture, but Reeve already knew it had fallen apart. They had to go. All of them. Now. There was no time. But he couldn't get the damn words out.

"He jes' woke up!" Barret was yelling, "You gotta get down to the med lab now! He woke up!"

Deep-seated horror suffocated Reeve, and he stammered out a soft reply. "Wh-wh-who?"

"Denzel, man! He's up!"

Barret smiled, but Reeve felt his head spinning. So this is what rock bottom feels like, he thought. A cold dark place of slowness like a poison. A primordial acceptance of absolute zero. The end. Goodbye. A long walk, and all that.

Reeve trembled as he looked at Barret. Then he began laughing. He could see the end. It was so damn close! It was all around them! Closing in. If Denzel was awake now, at precisely this moment, that meant only one thing.

"Whatchu laughin' about? C'mon man, keep it together!"

Reeve's eyes rounded as his mind cracked. Then he stifled his laughter just long enough to lean in close to Barret and whisper four tiny words, barely audible over the sound of the alarms.

"The calamity is here."


	21. No Way Back

\- No Way Back -

* * *

"So how do we get out?" Cloud asked, taking another sip of coffee.

Tifa sat on the floor across from him in his living room, tapping her fingers against her own mug in contemplation. The baby chocobo was out of its pen, anxiously stumbling back and forth between the two, warking in tiny adorable squeaks for affection. Cloud patted it on the head.

"Well," Tifa began uncertainly, "We should go to Edge. That's where it all began anyways. Maybe it can help bring back some memories of how you got here. Maybe the other world is just right there, beneath the surface, and there's a link to it that we just don't know about. I think Zack may be the key here…"

As she spoke, he couldn't help staring at her. It was unimaginable that she'd ever reconcile with him. They'd had five years of arguing after all, though she wouldn't have known it. It was like a version of her from his past, one that had been put on pause in his memories forever, was suddenly playing again in full force. A beautiful determined lover. It was almost enough to convince him.

It couldn't last. There was no way. Surely, Tifa would come to her senses in a few days, remember the long arguments they'd had, the sleepless nights he'd caused, and not in a good way, and she'd leave. Rufus was right. She always left. She always came back, but she always left him. It was almost cruel how much he allowed himself to put up with, as if she too were always hoping things would be different.

Maybe this time they would be. Tifa caught him staring and smiled back, putting her hand on his.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"We could just stay here forever, you know," he replied wistfully, "Just you and me."

"No," she said and pulled away, "We need to get back. Our friends need us. They need you."

He said nothing more. Just nodded.

Being next to him, even this strange shadow of him, was almost more than she could bear. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, to kiss him, to feel his body over hers again, to break apart those years of incredible loneliness and pain. The loss that had cut straight through her. But, no — she pushed the thought away — she was here now, she'd found him, and so they just had to solve this problem together before time ran out and she became trapped here forever.

And would that really be so bad, another voice piped up in her head.

"Right, so," she immediately moved on, "I think Edge is the first step."

Cloud downed the rest of his coffee. "Okay, but let's stop at the WRO office here in town first. I need to make sure someone can watch this little guy."

The chocobo warbled in response.

"Cloud, you know it's not real," Tifa said, somewhat disapprovingly.

"Well, just in case you are wrong… I wanna make sure he's okay. I told you I found him literally almost dead on the sidewalk, right in the middle of rush hour. Probably fell from the back of a breeder's truck."

"I'm not wrong, but fine. I understand." She didn't want to argue. After all, this version of him was far less predictable than the man she'd grown to love, and any additional back and forth was just wasting their time.

Shortly, they were on their way with tiny chocobo in tow. Cloud held it in his hand but it eventually perched on his arm, then hopped over to Tifa's arm and warked at her happily. The town was a bustling bright little place, vivid and anxious. It had been so long since she'd truly been somewhere populated that she'd almost forgotten what it felt like. The city of Edge that she'd woken up in was thousands of times more crowded, but she'd hurried out of there so fast it felt nearly like a dream. But this place, next to Cloud, felt real. More real than anything before.

It was unsettling, feeling people push past or hearing bits of actual normal conversation in varying tones. But this _was_ normal for them, she had to remember. The nightmare she came from wasn't on anyone's mind. Purposefully, she pointed out silently. Purposefully. Yes, she had a purpose here.

Except Cloud smiled at her when she caught him staring, and it felt so damn genuine that she laughed.

"Sorry," he said, "It's just been a while since you've actually been… Well, since you've been with me like this."

She wanted to ask him about their relationship. How had they fallen apart exactly? What had happened in those years between them? But what would that accomplish? None of it would matter once they got home. Perhaps they wouldn't even remember.

"To think that none of this is real…" he trailed off.

The crowds began to thin, and an imposing dark metal building appeared around the next block. That same logo that was on Cloud's arm adorned the entryway. A sword, a gun, a red summon materia, and big black letters over gold background. It was the WRO office.

Tifa paused at the sight. "Wait," she said.

Everything about the structure was wrong, out of place. Something was slipping apart in front of her, impossible to see but drowning her nevertheless.

Cloud glanced back. "I need to drop him off with someone here before we go to Edge, remember?"

Yes, but actually seeing the building made her second-guess their plan. It was like a fortress, and suddenly she didn't want to go inside.

"This won't take long," he reasoned dismissively, then turned and walked towards the front door.

Tifa wanted to grab Cloud's arm, to remind him that the chocobo wasn't real and that it was literally just a distraction, but Cloud's expression was so innocently confused and earnestly determined that she suddenly felt bad trying to stop him. And there was something else happening, too. In the back of her mind, she began remembering more of her life here. Yes, she remembered fighting with Cloud, arguing with him over their future together. A future that wasn't possible, not in any satisfying sense. She was never at her best when she was always supporting him, and he could never move on with her. She remembered how Rufus had snaked his way into her life. It had started as an accident really, but things grew hot fast and -

No, she cut the thoughts off at once. No, this isn't real and those memories are false. Imprisonment. Distractions. She forced her eyes to focus back on Cloud and followed him into the WRO building.

Inside was a cavernous lobby, devoid of color and personality, and Tifa could see at least five or six stories up through the interior that rose above like a citadel. There was no reception desk or waiting area of any kind, and it was entirely silent. The walls somehow blocked all noise from the streets. Cloud walked nonchalantly towards the elevators along the far wall and swiped a keycard to gain access. Hesitantly, she stepped in alongside him.

There was a long pause as the elevator ascended.

"So you really work here?" Tifa ventured, still uneasy.

Cloud suddenly seemed just as uncomfortable. "Well, yes. I work for… the weapons division. This is a branch office. The headquarters are in Edge."

Naturally, Tifa thought. This was a construct of the alien's world, so naturally the WRO would be dark and bleak, a weaponizing antagonist. Strange.

But it seemed Cloud no longer wanted to talk about it. Maybe knowing what he was on the other side of the mirror was having a greater effect on him than he initially let on. Maybe the gravity of their situation was finally sinking in. Tifa wasn't sure exactly.

The elevator pinged on the top floor and Cloud immediately stepped out with Tifa close behind. The halls ahead were partially glass on top, allowing unfettered visibility into the multitude of sleek offices on either side, each with minimal furnishings and floor to ceiling windows. A handful of men and women in dark suits milled about, carrying files or talking quietly amongst themselves. It was clearly an office of those with high pay-grades. The whole scene left Tifa very disquieted.

Cloud walked on, past several offices, down the endless halls. Anyone who saw him either waved and stopped to chat or moved aside nervously with a salute, and he returned the gestures with a passive nod or a quick moment of small talk. Judging by their interactions, he was either very popular or very dangerous. Tifa couldn't decide which, and really what was the difference.

The whole place made her queasy. There were framed newspaper headlines in the walls of one office showcasing events that she'd never heard of, smiling faces of people she'd never seen in the WRO. There'd been scientific breakthroughs she didn't remember, and she soon gathered from a multitude of visual sources as well as snippets of conversation overheard passing in the halls, that the WRO was at war. And they were winning.

It made her sick. She felt so out of place, lost in a time that felt the same but looked different. All the things she didn't know that she should. And other things she shouldn't know that she did.

Suddenly, Cloud stopped short and Tifa nearly bumped right into him.

Towards the end of the hall, he evidently found his objective and made conversation with one of his co-workers in her office. He asked her if she'd be willing to care for this adorable baby chocobo for just a few days, and look how cute he is sleeping over there like that, and it would be such a big favor just while Cloud was out of town. The woman nodded back, nearly squealing with delight at the sight of the, oh yes, very adorable baby chocobo. Tifa gently nudged the animal awake and handed it over.

"Thanks, Pris," Cloud smiled at her, "I owe you one."

She blinked at him and blushed. "Of course! Anything! Especially for one so adorable."

But it wasn't clear if she meant Cloud or the chocobo, and Tifa chuckled. It was rather hilarious seeing how oblivious he was to her affections. Or maybe he was ignoring her on purpose. Poor thing. Him and her, really. But no, Tifa straightened her thoughts out, this wasn't important.

With the baby chocobo taken care of, Tifa was all too happy to be leaving this awful place. Her hand in Cloud's, they headed back towards the elevator and they were just turning the corner with the exit in sight when suddenly a younger man came running down the hall, straight towards Cloud. He wore the same style jacket that Cloud had with the WRO logo on the sleeve, and he halted in front of Cloud with a brisk salute.

"Sir!"

Cloud sighed impatiently. "Yes?"

"Sir, the General wishes to speak with you in his office at once."

Tifa's adrenaline surged. "G-General?" she stammered.

Cloud hesitated for a flicker of a moment before responding to the man. "No problem. I'll be right there."

The man quietly departed. Tifa grabbed Cloud's arm.

"You can't be serious!" she whispered hoarsely, "We need to get to Edge and start figuring out how to get home. And besides… The General… I mean, is that…" she caught her breath, feeling a bit foolish but pressing forward anyways, "Is that who I think it is?"

There was only one person she'd known to retain the title of General and he was long dead. Unless of course he wasn't here. Which seemed entirely possible given the other impossibilities that she'd already experienced.

But Cloud didn't look worried at all. He seemed annoyed, if anything.

"Don't worry," he said to her, "I'll make sure it's quick," then he added in a low voice, "And besides, if what you've said about this alien entity is true, that it can get into our heads and make us believe anything is real, then we can't alert it to the fact that we're aware of it here. I have to act the way I normally would. For now. And I would normally not disobey the General."

He paused in front of an open door to a larger office space with several couches and tables and a row of vending machines within. She thought about his words for a moment.

"At least let me come with you," she argued.

He shook his head. "That wouldn't be advisable. He's not… fond of you, and it would be unusual for you to be here. Like this. With me." Then he cleared his throat and motioned towards the open door. "Here. Just wait in the employee lounge for me. Grab a cup of coffee. I'm sure this won't take long."

She still wasn't entirely convinced, but before she could conjure up the right words to dissuade him, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek, swiftly halting any further protests.

Then he leaned close and whispered, "I'll be right back. I promise."

A promise. From him. The words caught in her throat and then he was gone, walking down the corridor away from her. She remained motionless for a moment, debating whether to run after him but ultimately he was right. If the alien had any sort of actual physical control over the course of events in this reality, then she had to play her part as best she could. And that meant, for now, sitting in the employee lounge at the eeriest WRO office she'd ever been to.

Cautiously, she entered the employee break room. A low murmur of subdued conversations and rustling papers greeted her, and she spotted several dark-suited employees working with mugs of hot coffee and papers spread out in front of them on tables or couches. Everything about it was so usual, just another ordinary office environment, and absolutely nobody looked up when she entered.

Relax, she tried to tell herself. Just blend in, and wait.

Anxiety continued to build, though, and she couldn't stop fidgeting. She got a cup of coffee. She sat down at a table. She waited. She tapped her fingers nervously against the sides of the plastic mug. Time went by and still he didn't return. The other employees in the lounge began to disperse, heading off to meetings and whatever else they did at the WRO. Slowly, surely, she was becoming alone. Out of place. An obvious misfit. And a terrible thought began looping through her head.

Then she felt someone staring at her. Across the room, a lone figure sat perfectly still facing her direction.

It was Tseng. He was at the far table, in the corner, coffee in front of him, and when she made eye contact he immediately looked away. There was something reminiscent about him. Something important, even. Yes, wasn't he the one at the Fort that had been comatose all this time? That's right. She remembered it now. He'd seen the calamity. He'd randomly awoken and told them all the name of the form it had taken. But it was hard to keep that memory intact in her mind, like a dizzying fog evading the grasp of a fist.

Cautiously, she walked over to him.

"Miss Lockhart…" Tseng acknowledged her with a curt nod. "Rufus Shinra didn't inform me you'd be stopping by at our office. Otherwise, I would have made sure appropriate accommodations could have been made for you in town."

She sat down in the seat across from him, unsure exactly what to say. There was so little she knew about this place and all its inhabitants. But maybe Tseng…

"Why were you staring at me?" she asked without introduction.

The question took him aback. He immediately averted his eyes again. "Apologies. I… I couldn't tell if it was you." Then he glanced up at her, as if careful to watch her reaction.

"What do you mean? Why couldn't you tell it was me?"

"You have a certain… Hmm. Today you simply look different."

She leaned forward, suddenly eager to find any sort of corroboration in him and he held her gaze. He was itching for that same corroboration back.

"How, Tseng? How do I look different?" She couldn't mask her desperation, but she no longer cared.

"You remember it, don't you?" he asked softly, "The other side." It was nearly too soft for her to hear but every ounce of her focus was aimed at him and she leaned in, nodding rapidly, completely spellbound.

"Yes!" she whispered back, "Yes, I remember all of it! I just woke up here, but already it's fading."

Tseng leaned back. "Soon it will all fade, Miss Lockhart. That's how it goes with everyone."

"Everyone except you," she reasoned, "You remember it all, too."

Solemnly, he nodded. "I've… been trying to understand it myself. How I can be… trapped between these two worlds like I am…" His eyes focused far off for a moment, then he brought his gaze back to her. "What are you doing here, Tifa?"

The alleviation she felt at finding someone else who remembered reality was overwhelming, like seeing an old friend in a sea of strangers, and she almost began laughing with excitement.

"I'm here to bring Cloud back," she said quickly, "We're going to find a way out."

"You came here willingly?" The thought seemed to disgust him.

"Y-yeah," she faltered, "It was the only way I could reach him. Cloud. But once we find a way out, we can all go back together. You and me and him."

"Go back?"

"Yes."

"There is no way back."

Tifa stared for a moment, unsure. "But you...you woke up over there," she reasoned, "On the other side. You're at the Fort. Elena is caring for you, and you woke up for a few moments and told everyone that the alien is wearing Zack's skin. Surely you know how -"

"Yes, I've seen it, Miss Lockhart," Tseng hurried on, "The calamity. It's… it's everywhere. It's always trying to drag me deeper here, you see. The asset. We all thought he was dead."

"The calamity," she grasped at the subject, trying to focus him, "Is it here? Is it somehow in this world with us, monitoring us?"

Tseng frowned. "No, no, I've never seen it here. I don't know what this place is. The alien only exists when I'm asleep. It peers into me. Waiting for me. A faceless shade." He sounded frantic, scared. A hostage of this place with one toe in reality, being torn apart.

"But there must be a way out," she pressed on.

Sadly, he shook his head. "No. There's no way out. I've seen many people enter this place. They are at first full of vibrant energy, like yourself, but that soon fades. It always fades and then they forget and then they think I'm crazy. And maybe I am. After all this time, who knows. But from what I've seen, nobody can go back. Nobody ever leaves."

"Surely you can't know that. Not about everyone."

Tseng shook his head again. "Nobody ever goes back to how they were before. There's a distinct difference, but nobody else can see it. Only me. Only I can, Miss Lockhart."

Tifa leaned back in her chair, folding her arms. He did sound a little crazy, actually. The tone in his voice, the glint in his eyes.

"I just pretend the other world is a dream," Tseng went on, "It's the only way I can get through the day. It's the only way I can stay here, hold down a job. With my Turk credentials, there's really no better place for me to go." He stirred his coffee with a plastic spoon. "Rufus takes good care of me…" Tifa noticed the coffee cup was empty, then she watched Tseng take a sip. He seemed to burn his tongue and inhaled a tiny hiss of pain. Tifa stood, backing away a step.

She held her hands up cautiously. "This is just a mistake. I'm sorry to have bothered you."

"Miss Lockhart, if you do find a way out…" Tseng looked up at her, pleading. "If you do ever see me again on the other side… Please, you must help me. You must find a way to let me go, let me exist here fully. Please promise me you'll do me that favor. I can't keep living like this. It's… it's…"

But Tifa was already bolting from the room. She had to find Cloud. They had to leave immediately. Tseng's behavior chilled her to the bone, and she rushed through the halls, looking for any indication of the General's office.

And then she saw it, or more specifically she saw _him._ At the far end corner office, a door was opening and a low apologetic tone raced from the breath of a figure being ushered out. It wasn't Cloud, but her eyes were locked on the person standing within the room, behind the departing man. A flash of silver hair. Dark clothes.

Her heart caught in her chest. It was him. Sephiroth. Those awful green eyes locked with hers, and everything changed. A fright she hadn't felt since Nibelheim ran through her blood faster than her determination and love could overcome. She was frozen, rooted to the spot, and he simply stared at her.

The unfortunate man who'd been in Sephiroth's office now scampered out of sight, clearly unnerved by whatever the General had said, and Tifa forced her muscles to move. Whatever Sephiroth's presence meant, she wasn't about to stick around and find out. Beneath her, her boots twisted and propelled her body forward, away from the corner office, away from those piercing green eyes and long silver hair. Where the hell was Cloud?

She stumbled down the hall from where she came, unable to quell the automatic fear coursing through her, when she collided heavily into another person coming around the next corner.

"Hey, Tif!" It was Cloud. He held her close. "What's going on? What's wrong? I just tried looking for you in the—"

"Let's go," Tifa said, not wasting any time.

There was no sense in explaining the relevance of the General here, in this world, to him, but now she understood. If the alien was seeking Jenova cells, then of course it would have already combed through the echoes of Jenova within Cloud, where Sephiroth perpetually resided. It had resurrected the pieces most clearly linked with heightened emotional memories into this weird shadowed world, and it was using that to pull a reaction from Tifa. To activate a dark inner fear of hers. To keep her off-balance, her brain distracted, in the worst possible way.

Yes, that glimpse of him down the hall had brought back a host of unbidden emotions like a punch to the gut. The sickening heat of the fire, the screams of her neighbors, the death of her father, her town burning to ash around her, and the fear. The anger. Her blood had never run so hot. Then she remembered Cloud… in the reactor…

She breathed out and grabbed his hand, stepping away from the General's office, careful to keep her thoughts in check. This place was slippery, she acknowledged. It wanted to pull her deeper with each passing second, trapped in a haze of tough memories, a spiral downward.

But Cloud didn't seem aware of any of this. Here, their worst enemy could roam freely, even be his boss. Yet without any specific knowledge of reality, Cloud would never know who or what he was reporting to. He'd been purposefully kept in the dark on so many things.

All the things he didn't know that he should...

Or maybe, a thought whispered in her head, you've made a mistake. Your mind made an error. Those who are dead cannot possibly come back to life. You're seeing things, tipping over the edge. Just like Tseng.

Everything raced in her head, and the fear in her chest was not dissipating despite her years of training and battle meditation. This felt far beyond a mere enemy. This was an enemy that could manipulate and mirror, could contort every ounce of your mind into whatever it pleased. And that was a horror more than she could fathom.

This was so much worse than she'd thought, and a new pain was driving itself into the base of her skull. A dull whine that heightened the more she focused on it. They had to leave. They had to get out.

Cloud had his arm around her and they were moving through the halls. She tried her best to make no indication of what she was feeling inside. She had to remain calm. Whatever she saw could not affect her plans.

"I'm sorry about Tseng," Cloud said suddenly beside her, "It's been a long time since he's had an outburst like that. He's a bit unstable as you can see. He has good days and bad, we say. And I guess today was bad."

Tifa heard him, but it didn't register right away. She was still focused on the General, and it took her an extra second to catch what he was talking about.

Then fresh horror built beneath her skin. "How did you know I saw Tseng?" she asked.

It was like an enemy had suddenly replaced her dear Cloud. She glanced over at him, but he wasn't making eye contact. He was different, but she couldn't pinpoint how. It was almost the same tone and persona he'd used when they'd first worked together in Avalanche, back in Midgar. When he thought he was someone else.

Then she noticed they'd walked right past the elevators.

"...Cloud?" A sharp needle of fright hit her spine. "Cloud, what are you doing? We need to get out of here."

He suddenly paused at an empty office and pushed them both inside. This particular room had no glass wall sections, and it made her panic. It was entirely dark within. Nobody could see them from the hallway.

"Wait a minute, what's going on?" she protested, but he didn't move from the door. He was blocking their way out. "Cloud, what are you doing? Tell me what's happened."

Because something definitely had.

Paranoia sparked to life in her chest. The General. He'd done something to Cloud, altered him in some way! This wasn't the man she loves anymore, she knew it. She could feel it. He'd gone back somehow, or been taken back. Which meant she was alone. And this was…

She tried to pull away, but he did not release her.

"What are you?" she asked fiercely, then corrected herself, "What are you doing?"

He gripped her arm harder.

"Ow!" She tried to pull away. "What are you -!?"

Then she stopped. Her muscles seized though the cause was unknown. Unseen. It was a deep terrible pain like overwhelming weight. Her boots felt pinned to the floor, pulling downward. Everything was heavy. She struggled to stand.

Cloud released her and she fell to the floor. Paralysis swept over her body, crushing, disorienting. Her throat felt tight and her fists useless, weak. She was so damn weak. She gazed up at Cloud, horrified as a trail of light green mist evaporated into the air around him, rising from his now closed fist. Then it clicked. He'd used a gravity materia on her, shaving away her strength and had she known it was coming, she could've been better prepared but he'd completely blindsided her.

"N...no, how did you…?" But she hadn't even seen him take a materia out nor was he wearing any additional armor or his sword. There was nothing to catalyze an activation.

"It's one of our new weapons." His voice was small and sad, a forlorn explanation. "The properties of materia…activated through Mako alone." His eyes met hers, a cold dim blue. "I have access to a host of these types of things now."

Tifa lay on the floor, watching with teeth clenched. The pain was not going away. Gravity was specifically a materia that could not kill, though, so at the very least whatever his intentions, it was only to immobilize her.

"What… Cloud…." It was impossible that he'd betray her, so the only logical explanation was that this wasn't him. He'd been taken back somehow, and some shadow of him was carrying on in his absence. "What...are you?" she forced the words out, despairingly.

A pained look crossed his face, and he backed away a step.

"I'm sorry, Tifa," Cloud said, "I can't let you leave. If something were to happen to you like what happened to Denzel… well, then I'd be responsible for that, wouldn't I? If I let you pursue this other world like he did, then maybe you'd end up the same. I just can't… " He sighed. "I can't, Tif."

Her eyes were wide. She wanted to respond, but her throat was tight.

Cloud shrugged helplessly, frowning now. "I'm sorry. I do love you."

Then he turned and left, locking the door behind him. Immediately, the sensation lifted from her muscles, like a faucet turning off. She stood and ran to the door, pounding frantically with both hands, demanding that he let her out. But there was no response. He was gone.

The lock was solid and the door was thick metal, and when she glanced back around the room she saw that it was, in fact, not an office at all but a rudimentary cell with hardly any furnishings. There'd surely been some initial illusion on the room clouding her sight before, because now it so damn clear all around her.

She was a prisoner. He didn't believe her. And a new horrid thought escalated within.

She _wasn't_ right. Cloud _hadn't_ been brought back anywhere. He'd simply made up his mind to do something difficult and so his demeanor had changed. And now she couldn't leave.

Reality hit hard. This Cloud wasn't just some projection of a soulless memory. He hadn't been stolen away to another world. He was worried about her, deeply. He loved her. And when he'd mentioned Denzel, a rush of actual memories had crashed in on her like a tidal wave. The obsession that had brought a kid to his death had infected her as well. She felt it coursing in her, and for some reason she thought of Tseng drinking that empty cup of coffee. Like a lunatic.

A fucking lunatic, she thought grimly.

After a couple hours, she gave up trying to unlock, pry open, or break down the door and simply sat in the corner of the room, tugging at a fistful of hair on her head. Why had she even thought it was so important to convince Cloud of this nonsense? It all sounded so stupid now that she thought about it. And Denzel's death was coming back to her in harsh bleak fragments. Yes, she'd been sick after they'd lost him. She was sick for years, and Cloud was only trying to help her now. It was all bubbling up, a relentless stream of logic and understanding.

The nausea of uncertainty was fading, and a familiar feeling crept into her. Something like missing him. A vague horrible sensation bore into her bones. It was loneliness, but to a severity of which she'd never felt before. Then she realized it was the first time she'd ever felt like giving up. Like being truly and utterly alone.


	22. Smoke and Fire

\- Smoke and Fire -

* * *

Vincent was in the medical bay when he heard the alarms, but he already knew what was happening. He'd felt it weaving throughout the infection branching up his side. The injury he'd sustained at the hands of the alien was not healing, and he suspected it never would. And now he felt it. The calamity was here, and his wound ached terribly like a sharp wedge of metal mangling his insides. Whatever the parasite was comprised of, it worked on some sort of network, linked back to the main alien who wore Zack's face. The reaction of his injury confirmed it.

Vincent had to think fast. He squeezed Yuffie's catatonic hand, to no response of course, then left the med bay. But as he limped to the door, he noticed Denzel's bed was empty. The young man was gone, undoubtedly called into action by the alien's presence. It made Vincent feel sick. He'd eventually have to deal with the younger man and his unearthly surrogate father as well as Zack directly. They were all coming and they'd have surely brought a host of creatures, too.

Armed soldiers rushed past Vincent as he headed towards the labs of the basement. Their meager supply of standard protective serum was kept down there, along with several flasks and beakers of the new Jenovite serum which the ex-ShinRa technicians were still duplicating and testing and re-testing. He knew he couldn't fight. The infection was too great, though Chaos was still tempting him for control. So he wanted to at least rescue whatever samples of Jenovite serum he could to ensure they could continue the work elsewhere. Then he'd go back upstairs and help evacuate, starting with Yuffie. Surely Reeve knew there was no way to fight this thing and win.

The medical bay was on the floor above the sunken back entrance to the Fort, and as he descended the stairwell, passing by the main floor, a terrific rush of frightened soldiers spilled past. Vincent pressed against the wall, out of sight. There, through the open door, he saw the two together. Cloud and Zack. The calamity and its puppet. They were perfectly unmarred, as naturally human-looking as anyone else, and they moved together down the corridor, cutting apart whoever was in their way with excruciating ease.

And Cloud looked happy. It was a shocking scene amidst the bloodshed. Once the last soldier had vacated or been killed, Zack grinned over at Cloud then slapped him on the back like he was congratulating a good friend over a winning game, and Cloud laughed, somewhat sheepishly, in response. The exchange felt so authentic that for a moment Vincent actually doubted if the Zack that stood there down the hall was indeed the terrifying alien entity that had nearly destroyed half the planet and was the current source of the anguish not healing along Vincent's side.

Cloud and Zack stood talking for a moment, but they spoke too soft for Vincent to hear. Cloud had a bit of a subservient posture, like a little brother or the less popular friend. Vincent had never really seen him behave this way. Then suddenly, Zack's eyes snapped up and cold violet looked directly at Vincent hiding within the stairwell.

"Ah, there you are..." Zack grinned again and advanced a step, then he turned towards Cloud like an afterthought, saying, "Go take care of the others. I'll handle this one. Remember pal, we're almost through this. Then we can finally go home."

Cloud nodded and ignored Vincent entirely, heading instead down the hall out of sight. Swords in hand, he was gone and Vincent had to be gone too. He knew he couldn't let the alien touch him again.

Forcing himself forward, Vincent continued down the stairs with Zack in pursuit. The basement wasn't much farther, and soon the precious supply of altered serum was in view. Or it should have been. Vincent turned into the deserted labs and froze.

The floor was covered in broken glass. All the flasks which held the Jenovite serum were broken, contents spilled everywhere in puddles on the floor, and the few remaining plastic bottles of the stuff were open, overturned, and completely empty. A heating element along with some measuring apparatus lay nearby, discarded and useless.

"No…" Vincent hardly recognized his own voice through the chaos coming towards him, railing in the back of his mind.

"Well, you've trapped yourself, I see," Zack said behind him suddenly.

Vincent turned to face the calamity, whose sword was drawn and whose smile was sharp.

"You know, I learned a lot since our last encounter. I don't think you'll be so difficult to manage this time around," Zack continued, stepping forward, boots crunching over glass, then he paused and looked around at the equipment. "And what is this place supposed to be?" He cautiously pushed the overturned fragments with his toe just a bit, disgusted. "Is this how you were able to camouflage yourself in my city before?"

Zack's laughter rang out clear and loud. A rumble of footsteps and muffled screams could be heard through the floor above. No doubt the creatures were in the base, too, killing indiscriminately. Chaos burned to be released, but Vincent was still trying to think. Across the room, a stack of vials of standard serum sat undisturbed, but all the Jenovite mixture was gone. He'd failed at this endeavour and now it was a dead end with the monster blocking the only route back. Vincent breathed out, feeling that despair settle into calm resignation.

At least he could occupy the alien down here for a little bit, maximizing the length of time everyone else had to evacuate the Fort. Zack stepped forward.

"No monster this time?" he asked Vincent mockingly, "Too bad. I wanted to see that again."

Then Zack moved, still smiling, swinging the massive weapon. Vincent sidestepped, firing back a series of shots but of course the alien evaded. Zack's speed was unnaturally fast, and the bullets smashed through glass cabinets behind exactly where he'd been standing less than a second earlier. Vincent followed up with another four expertly timed shots, but Zack deflected all, slicing at Vincent and grazing the flesh of his shoulder through the red cape. A jolt of pain snaked through Vincent's body, lighting up the infection like a firecracker and he fell to his knees. Zack smiled even wider.

Undeterred, Vincent kept firing. Pings of metal ricocheted around the room, bouncing off the buster sword. The lab was a disaster, and suddenly, one of the bullets struck a container of something flammable. A popping explosion erupted behind Zack. Shards of metal shrapnel cut through the air into the alien's torso, shielding Vincent from the worst of it though the intense heat singed his hair and skin.

A vacuous pocket of hot air and bright flames lapped at them from the corner near the door. The explosion hadn't been quite enough to do anything except set the frame and adjoining wall ablaze, but it was spreading rapidly, following shallow lines of chemicals spilled across the floor. The vials of protective serum stacked nearby on the counter burst in the escalating heat, and thin yellow vapor clouded the room.

Zack began coughing, then he picked Vincent up by the collar and held him up.

"Transform for me. Before you die…" A mouthful of blood stretched across Zack's face in the diabolical flashes of light from the failing electricity above and the scores of fire spreading around them. If this was hell, Vincent believed it. In his damaged state, he could do so little. He was unaccustomed to being so weak.

A backup safety protocol kicked in and sprinklers overhead turned on, showering them both in lukewarm water. The vapour in the air was sucked out through a series of fans in the ceiling. But it was too late. All the serum was gone. Destroyed. And the alien was stronger than ever.

Then Zack paused, as if he was listening to something far away.

"You idiot," he hissed at Vincent and tossed him aside like a doll. The smile had vanished and in its place was cold fury. Chaos was rattling Vincent's brain, threatening to simply take over and not relinquish control ever again unless Vincent immediately let him handle this pathetic weakling with the sword in front of them.

The cut in Vincent's shoulder and the old wound in his side burned hot despite the water drenching him. Smoke from the dying fire was sucked up through the fans but Vincent felt he could barely see. His vision was blurring and his hands were shaking again. Everything hurt, a deep dark pain to his core. Maybe this was what death felt like. He didn't know.

Zack was shaking his head angrily. "You have no idea what you just did, and now I have to kill you quickly. I'd have preferred to see that monster you hold inside one more time, but now… Now look what you're making me do."

Zack ran his sword forward, straight towards Vincent's chest, but in that moment Chaos snapped to attention, taking over in ferocity. Two clawed hands caught the metal, stopping the path of the sword before it could penetrate, and Zack let out a small noise of intrigue. Dim Mako eyes met smoldering red pits, and instantly the two fought.

Dark wings and long cruel claws slashed through the alien's flesh, tearing it into shreds as it raised its sword and hacked at the monster. The two things clashed violently, as if the end of the world were upon them. As if they were causing it.

Vincent figured this was likely the end, at least for him, as he sat back and watched Chaos do what it did best.

Far above, two flights up, the exhaust from the emergency fan system had failed and spewed vapor and smoke into the terminal point of the ventilation on that floor. It was a section of crew quarters, a series of rooms honeycombed with bunk beds and personal items. In the far corner, Marlene sat with her knees up to her chest. She was watching the unthinkable in total silence, shocked and shaking and unable to do anything because she knew the gun in her hands was useless.

She'd seen death and mayhem and war. She'd seen mangled creatures rip apart a friend right in front of her eyes, but she'd never thought she'd see Cloud again. Not like this. Not the way he was now. Complete and total horror gripped her the moment Barret entered the quarters, desperately searching for Marlene, because she saw the shadow following behind him. She wanted to call out to Barret, to take his hand and run as far and fast as possible, but she couldn't. Cloud had showed up, and he was unlike anything she remembered.

Barret stood between them, one hand protectively out towards Marlene, then the swords slid apart in the blonde's hands and Marlene felt her body sink into the corner of the room with paralysis. Tifa had been wrong. This thing was not Cloud. Not at all.

Eerie luminescent eyes gazed at Barret like a predator. The swordsman was covered in mud but otherwise seemed perfectly healthy. How could he have survived alone in Edge for so long? Marlene had simply assumed he was dead. He had to be. Except he wasn't alone in Edge, she reflected darkly, not truly. If the stories were to be believed, Cloud was thriving off the calamity's connection, regenerating constantly through his alien cells.

He advanced, swords in clear offensive position. Barret yelled at Marlene to stay down while he fired a stream of bullets at the oncoming threat. He'd already switched out his metal hand for a fast-loading gun, but it felt so strange to see him aim it at Cloud.

Cloud dodged, charged at Barret, then sliced through the gun-arm with deadly precision.

The customized weapon clattered to the floor in two pieces. Barret rolled his other fist back and socked Cloud right in the face fast. Blood dripped down Cloud's jaw from a split lip, but already his swords were reacting. To end Barret's life. That's when Marlene pulled the trigger. A single round pierced through Cloud's shoulder and he staggered back then locked eyes with Marlene. He came towards her, unfazed.

"No!" Barret screamed and grabbed the back of Cloud's shirt.

Marlene felt cold. The bullet hadn't even damaged him really, and now the handgun felt heavy and pointless as he stepped closer. Useless. She squeezed her eyes shut.

The cloud of vapor from the exhaust fan was still filling the room and now it was so thick she began coughing. The taste was sour and acrid, and smelled vaguely like the injectable serum. She heard Barret shouting something at Cloud, saw the shadows change beneath her eyelids like he was looking back at Barret.

Then, a voice she hadn't heard in years came through the fog.

It was Cloud, and he was screaming. Through the commotion she opened her eyes. Cloud stood in front of her, gasping and looking all around in fright. He was screaming like he was in pain or having some really horrible nightmare.

"Cloud…?" she called to him, but he backed away, choking on his own breath.

Barret immediately put himself between Marlene and Cloud again. Though his gun had been destroyed and the mechanical connections in his arm severed, he still held his other fist up in defiance. He'd die protecting Marlene if he had to.

Cloud caught his breath and looked up as if noticing them for the first time.

"Barret? I.." Then he winced and dropped the swords, holding one hand up against his shoulder. Blood leaked through his fingers. "You shot me… You…" Cloud seemed confused, dazed. Marlene had no clue what had happened to him but the strange smoke in the air seemed to have something to do with it.

"Stay the fuck away from me, man!" Barret yelled, "I'm warning you!"

"No, Barret… I... " Cloud looked all around, still cringing while he took in his surroundings. "Where am I?" he asked, then his tone changed frantically, "Where's Tifa?!"

All trace of the soulless killer from moments ago was gone. Instead it was his old friend, Cloud, standing there with a bullet through his shoulder, painstakingly trying to make sense of what was happening.

"You back? This really you again?" Barret ventured cautiously.

But Cloud didn't understand. He repeated his last words, with more fervor. It was the last thing he remembered, leaving her at the WRO employee lounge, telling her to get a cup of coffee. He'd promised her he'd be right back. He'd told her it would only take a minute. But now she was nowhere in sight. And he'd somehow woken up in dreamland. He coughed, an awful taste filling his throat and mouth from the air. His skin itched like an allergy, but he kept his attention focused on Barret. Behind the man, he spotted Marlene, holding a gun pointed directly at him. So she'd been the one to shoot him, which meant he was likely about to do something awful. Maybe he'd been about to kill Barret. That would explain the messy remnants of an arm and the stony glare. But no, he promised her he'd be right back. He had to find her in this world. If he'd been about to do something awful here, there's no telling what sort of danger she was in.

"Where is Tifa?" he asked again, more desperate, "Where is she?!"

Barret yelled back, "Ain't nobody knows, man! She last went to Edge to find you! We all thought you long dead!"

Cloud was quickly putting the pieces together, patched from snippets that Tifa had told him about this other world.

Then he felt something else calling him. A strange lonely feeling like being out of sync with a lover or too far apart from a best friend for too long. The haze in the air was spilling out into the hallway now, a thin yellowish smoke, and Cloud followed it, breathing it in. Somehow, something deep within him knew that this was the reason he'd regained control. Something deep and primordial. An ancient instinct.

Clutching his bloody shoulder, sword sheathed on his back, he marched forward, following the curious feeling with nothing but her in his mind.


	23. Awake

\- Awake -

* * *

He was in some sort of underground bunker from what he could tell. The walls were metal supports over dirt and gravel, and a dozen gory corpses lined the halls. Soldiers. Every one of them had a WRO patch on their arm, but it wasn't the kind Cloud recognized. Ahead he could hear the sounds of fighting and carnage. Shots being fired and dying screams.

As he approached the end of the hall, he felt a mild pain in his head. A dull throb like a heartbeat.

Denzel appeared in the corridor, evidently chasing down some soldiers. The young man held a rifle in one hand and a serrated hunting knife hung at his belt. He picked off one of the fleeing men with ease, dropping the guy in one hit. Two strange winged creatures pursued soldiers down the hall, but Denzel didn't seem alarmed by them.

"Denzel!" Cloud shouted between joy and confusion.

The boy turned but he wasn't a boy at all. He was a young man. That's right, Tifa had said Denzel was still alive in this place. He'd grown up and had become a crucial part of the WRO.

Cloud smiled at Denzel. "It's you. It's really you!" He wanted to hug the boy, to kiss his forehead and never let him go again, but there was something wrong. Denzel stood deathly still and his eyes were glazed over icy pools. "Denzel?"

The rifle rested casually in Denzel's hand. A rifle. The memory came back to Cloud fast. When Denzel had woken up from his coma, he'd asked for a rifle. The reality of it was horrific. It had all been true, even back then. But there was something else itching in him. That dull heartbeat. He heard it louder now, and it wasn't his own.

"Denzel, put the gun down," Cloud said firmly.

The young man didn't move, but he also didn't pursue the remaining soldiers as they booked it out of the hall. He merely stared back at Cloud like a lifeless doll. Let's try something else, a voice popped into the undercurrent of Cloud's thoughts. An image suddenly materialized, one of Denzel putting down the weapons and sitting quietly. Cloud focused on it.

Miraculously, Denzel obeyed. No sooner had the idea completed in Cloud's head did the other comply, and an awful realization carved a pit in Cloud's stomach. This was Jenova. He knew that familiar sensation but he'd never been on the other side before, controlling another. It was enough to make him feel ill, but there was something else that required his attention. Something greater.

Another presence was somewhere, further down, calling to him. There wasn't much time. The sickly vapor in the air was thinning out and his lungs were not getting nearly as much with each breath anymore. He had to find the source. The alien, as Tifa had called it. He had to destroy it. He was close. He could feel it.

Then he could save her.

Denzel sat obediently, staring down at the floor, and Cloud left. There was a stairwell along the far wall and he descended, being pulled and pushed forward in equally disturbing supernatural measures. At the base of the stairwell, sounds of a struggle emerged, growing louder as he progressed. Lights flicked above as he moved through what appeared to be the remnants of a lab, and through the double doors in the next room Cloud knew he would find what he was looking for.

He pushed the doors open and everything in him paused.

Zack stood in the center of a charred room amidst broken glass and destroyed lab equipment, with the buster sword out, braced against the lethal claws of a winged demonic monster. He was soaking wet from the overhead sprinkler system, evidently triggered by whatever fire had happened, and a wave of memories hit Cloud like a shock of ice water.

A rainy day. A yellowish cloudy sky. Mud. Gunshots. Delirium.

"Zack?" The name felt strange and distant, and the longing to see his friend just one more time, to beg his forgiveness for getting him killed, for never being able to live up to his memory, was surfacing hard and fast.

Zack pushed back the monster attacking him and looked over at Cloud. Then he smiled.

"Hey buddy. You made it!" He brushed a strand of wet black hair from his face. "C'mon, help me finish this thing. We gotta grab the kid and go!"

Yes, this was Zack. Every ounce of him was real, standing right there.

Except Zack was dead.

But maybe in this life he wasn't. Like Denzel. What had Tifa told him about this? Only that Zack didn't look the way he remembered. He'd somehow thought Zack looked different but that seemed so silly now. Zack was clearly right there. Alive. And he needed help.

The winged monster was filled with dark red shadows as it darted around the room, attempting to claw apart Zack, who must've taken a hit at one point because his chest was bleeding from some unseen wound.

"What are you waiting for, buddy?" Zack called to Cloud as he deflected another blow from the fiend. "Help me!"

The red shadows suddenly approached Cloud, who still stood at the door holding his bleeding shoulder. The creature didn't hurt Cloud, however, and as he stared at its large folded wings and horned face, the details of a friend emerged.

"Cloud…" a low voice rumbled, "Are you awake?"

Awake? The question echoed within him. What did being awake even feel like? Would he know the difference anymore?

"Cloud! You must listen to me," Vincent's voice found him through the noise of doubt, "It's a parasite. That's not Zack. It's wearing his skin. That's the alien who's been controlling you."

But the words were cut short as Zack ran his sword through the air, and Chaos reacted, deflecting the blade and twisting around to use Zack's momentum against him. Above them, the sprinklers sputtered then completely failed. A burning patch of chemicals still smoked near the door, and Chaos grabbed a handful of hot metal, throwing it at Zack's face. Bits of debris broke apart as it hit him. And Cloud still watched. His shoulder hurt, his head ached, and his best friend was in pain. Yet that other _something_ deep within him was revolting. The Jenova cells that had reacted to Denzel were now reacting again, vying for Cloud's attention. Something was sifting around inside him. A terrible defense. It wanted to protect him and itself. It was changing. Cloud couldn't make sense of it, and his mind and body were suddenly telling him different things.

"Cloud, please!" Zack begged, no longer confident, "Help me, pal. C'mon, I thought we always stuck together. You and me, right?"

He held his hand out to Cloud, and Cloud reached back to help him up. Just to help him stand.

Then Chaos dove between them, slicing off Zack's outstretched hand in a sudden sharp move. Zack screamed, and his dismembered hand fell to the floor. Cloud recoiled instantly.

"Don't let it touch you!" Chaos rasped.

Fury ignited on Zack's face. The pained expression was gone and he struck forward, running the lethal heavy blade directly into Chaos' back, cutting through a leathery wing, and Chaos howled. The demon collapsed to the floor, dark blood spewing from the fresh wound in its back, and Cloud watched in horror as the severed limb climbed back to its owner, coalescing into Zack.

The alien was wearing Zack's face. Cloud heard Vincent's words loud and clear. The alien was trying to trick him, and Vincent was dying. Chaos crumpled up, dragging himself towards Cloud.

So this is it, Cloud thought, and he unsheathed his sword, sucking in a breath of pain as his shoulder protested violently. The torn muscles spiked hot shards down his arm, making any duel wielding impossible. He'd need to fight like he used to, back when he'd carried the massive buster sword himself. He'd barely carried it at all, to be honest. Couldn't even lift the damn weapon for days or weeks. Everything was a blur from back then.

"Vincent," Cloud called to Chaos, "Get out of here. Go upstairs. I'll handle him."

There was little he could do for the bleeding man. Without materia or potions, imminent healing was impossible. He could only hope Chaos still had the strength to get Vincent to safety. Somewhere above, distant yelling and running continued. There were survivors. Maybe they could help him.

"Go!" Cloud shouted again when the demon hesitated.

Zack stood across the room, fully repaired, sword angled in front of him. Cloud locked eyes with him and held his gaze while Vincent climbed through the doorway behind Cloud and vanished, leaving a bloody trail behind. The crackling heat of the smoldering chemicals ignited and fresh smoke began filling the room, black and billowing. WIthout the safety fans and sprinklers, the fire would spread.

"So this is how it's gonna be, huh pal?" Zack asked mildly, then he chuckled, "After all I did for you. After I dragged your lifeless body from the torture of -"

"Stop," Cloud said, "You aren't him. I know it now. She warned me."

"Ah," Zack responded knowingly, "Tifa. Did she tell you how I spared her? Did she tell you how I wanted her to join us? To travel the stars together? Don't you get it? I don't want to hurt you or her!"

"No…" Cloud shook his head. "No, my head is clear now. I can see you for what you really are." Or rather, Jenova could, though Cloud didn't want to admit it. The implanted alien cells meant to turn him into a weapon were responding to the threat of Zack like a hostile invader. A parasite, as Vincent had said. Now that Jenova was temporarily relieved of the alien's control, thanks to the vaporized serum in Cloud's lungs and bloodstream, the cells were reacting violently. Cloud wasn't even sure he'd be able to disobey the urge to destroy that thing in front of him if he really wanted to. "I'm sorry," he felt compelled to say, as if some semblance of Zack really could hear him somewhere, far in the ruins of the Lifestream.

Zack lowered his chin and adjusted his footing. "Alright then. Seems you've made your decision. It's too bad we have to do this the hard way."

Fire spread along the wall, forcing Cloud away from the doorway to escape its scorching heat, and smoke layered the ceiling. He breathed out and centered his focus, trying hard to ignore the throbbing pain in his shoulder. Then he stepped forward, and it began.


	24. The Fall

\- The Fall -

* * *

"You're making a big mistake," Zack said, circling Cloud slowly, "Don't you see that I want to save you?"

Cloud rushed forward, swinging towards Zack with deadly aim but the other reacted perfectly and their swords clashed together. Again and again, Cloud struck at him but each time Zack was stronger, faster. His shoulder pulsed with pain and he felt warm blood oozing down his arm. Zack evaded then kicked Cloud in the chest, sending him flying backwards. The flames grew around them, setting off another series of small explosions. The heat was burning Cloud's skin.

"Don't you understand what you are?" Zack called to him, "I want to preserve you. I want to bring you back to the stars. You are the last of an ancient species. A vast powerful being that my kind has never encountered before."

Cloud's arm was becoming numb. Smoke filled the top of the room now. He spotted another metal door across from the entry, another lab most likely, and he went for it, darting past Zack and throwing open the door, desperate to escape the heat and choking smoke.

Inside this smaller room, the sprinklers must had also gone off earlier yet now ran dry because everything was wet but it was a dead end. There was no where to go. Along the wall were large canisters filled with something that was flammable, judging by the multitude of warning labels. Maybe it was a source of fuel for the Fort, and maybe if the entity was close enough when the heat from the fire made it into this room...

"Stop this." Zack was directly behind Cloud, "I came to this planet to retrieve you and I've given your host everything. Now get him in control and come with me."

"Control?"

"Yes, whatever nonsense has broken our connection can be healed, sister."

Cloud backed into the room, towards the canisters. The fire had engulfed the other room entirely, and charred pieces of the ceiling were collapsing behind Zack, completely closing off escape. Cloud realized there was likely no way he could survive this. Soon he would run out of oxygen as the fire worked its way towards them if his lungs didn't fill with smoke first. He only regretted leaving Tifa alone at the WRO offices. He wished desperately that he hadn't promised her he'd be right back.

Cloud heaved his weapon towards Zack again, hoping his arm wouldn't give out entirely. His entire sleeve was soaked with blood though he could no longer feel it against his skin. Everything was numb. Zack dodged the blow, almost lazily, then suddenly grabbed Cloud's arm. The skin of the alien's hand latched on like glue and Cloud pulled away, unable to break the grasp.

Something spiked through Zack's touch. A hot pain like bubbling metal through his veins. Then Zack released him, as if he'd also experienced the pain.

"H-How?" Zack fell back, clutching his burned hand. Bit of flesh were melting off his fingers. Then his surprise faded and he smiled like he was impressed, "You've...changed? Adapted somehow? By gods, you are really something."

Cloud wasn't sure what had happened, but he knew Jenova had something to do with it. That devious thing could change its looks, voice, probably even the properties of its host cells entirely, shifting someone towards whatever it pleased. No doubt it was altering itself to protect precisely against the parasite's interference. How long had the vapor been clear of his lungs? How long until his body cleansed it from his bloodstream? Was Jenova using that to its advantage, mimicking the properties to keep Cloud's head clear? Or had it just naturally learned to protect itself?

"Get away from me," Cloud spat and inched backwards, further into the room.

"There's nothing like you, and I want to keep you. Within ourselves, nothing can harm you."

Fire lapped at the corners of the doorframe, finding traces of ignitable chemicals in the water trailing all over the floor. Zack noticed, glancing back over his shoulder.

"You're trapped here," he said, "You'll destroy yourself and I can't have that. Come with me. End this and we can go home."

The heel of Cloud's boot hit the canisters of fuel and he swallowed hard, seeing both the alien and the flames advancing. The sword felt so damn heavy and his arm was entirely numb, locked in place holding the weapon. Blood dripped down his elbow. It was getting harder to breathe.

"What are you?" Cloud asked, struggling with a sudden dizziness. Maybe it was imminent death making him feel so sick. "Are you really a parasite?"

Zack laughed. "I am a survivor, and I find other survivors. I preserve them."

"You imitate. You enslave."

"I mimic in order to learn more. Not dissimilar to yourself."

The fire had expanded into the room, and the heat was unbearable. Cloud's sword wavered unsteadily as the muscles in his injured arm began failing.

"You mimic and you subdue and you destroy anything not like us," Cloud said, suppressing the panic rising in his chest.

"Us. Yes! Exactly!" Zack's eyes lit up, "There's nobody on this planet like us. Not even that woman or that boy or any of the multitude of temporary hosts. You are the only living thing left."

The flammable warning labels were beginning to peel off the canisters into the air. Sweat drenched his face and hair. Behind the alien, the entire lab had collapsed and disappeared into black smoke. Cloud began coughing.

"Fire can't harm me," Zack continued sadly, "But it will destroy your host, and it seems you can't transfer yourself into a new body or I suspect you would have already."

"Shut up!" Cloud snapped. "Stop talking at me like I'm something else!"

A roar of flames sucked into the room as a series of oxygen tubes from the filtration systems cracked on the wall. Glass struck the side of Cloud's face, slicing his cheek open.

"But you are something else. Don't you see it?" Zack kept walking forwards.

The fire wouldn't hurt it, Cloud repeated softly in his head. Fuck. This entire plan was going to fail. He exhaled, held the sword higher and charged, moving against every protesting cell and muscle and tearing pain. Moving towards the impossible odds. It felt like a familiar place to be somehow. All he could think of was leaving Tifa. Alone. In that fucking coffee lounge. She was probably still there now. Waiting for him. Trying to save him.

The sword in Zack's hands clicked upwards at once, blocking Cloud's attack but Cloud pressed forward, pushing all his weight against the monster. Then Zack shifted his footing, releasing the momentum of Cloud's attack and Cloud fell behind him. Directly into the burning doorway.

His body reacted faster than his mind, and he jumped away releasing the sword. It fell into the intense heat, unreachable, and fresh pain shot through his arm as muscles shifted out of carrying the weight. It was unimaginable. The heat, the smoke, the pain covering his skin. He lay on his side, coughing uncontrollably.

And through the haze, he saw the alien standing near the fuel tanks. Smiling. Fucking smiling like it had won. It reached for Cloud, a friend through the darkness. It wanted to help him to his feet.

Then the canisters exploded. Cloud saw it happen in slow motion. The fire hadn't even reached that corner of the room yet, but the extreme heat had evidently been enough to disturb whatever chemicals were pressurized within. A booming noise accompanied the white flash. A silhouette of Zack turning was framed in his head, then heat and pain overtook him.

The blast threw him against something hard like concrete and more pain splintered into his back and hips. Then he felt another body near his, shielding him. It was Zack. Through the bright hot hell, Zack crouched over him while fire and crashing ruins of ash tumbled all around them. The alien was indestructible and unnaturally strong. None of the debris was hitting Cloud.

When at last the falling wreckage had ceased, Zack looked up and pulled them both free. Fire still burned everywhere, but a pit had opened up in the ground where the canisters had been. The floor was caving in. Cloud vaguely remembered there being a cave system beneath Fort Condor, one that ran all the way up to Kalm. A mine of some sort. Yes, an old mine. The air coming from the newly opened shaft was acrid and sour, though Cloud still gasped for any bit of it to fill his lungs.

Under him the ground was cracking and crumbling as the gaping hole grew wider. Zack stood over Cloud protectively. He seemed to be looking for a way out. Above them, the explosion had also burned through the ceiling and there was a shaft of light from the floor above peeking through a dozen small holes. Zack was attempting to reach one of them.

Cloud pulled himself closer to the edge of the pit. His bloody arm was entirely useless, limp at his side, and his back and ribs were screaming in rivets of pain. Burns covered his skin in red arcs. Everything hurt, more than he ever thought possible. The resilience of his cells from the Mako and the Jenova was surely the only reason he even survived the initial blast. He crawled to the opening of the pit.

Beneath was indeed a cave, stretching far into darkness. But there, at the very bottom, a distant glimmer caught his eye. The faintest reflection of light.

It was liquid. A dull greenish glow. Barely visible. His heart caught in his chest.

The Lifestream!

It had died down, dried up everywhere on the surface. Nobody had seen it for years, maybe even longer here in this world. Yet there it was. Like a phantom.

Zack was climbing through the fiery wreckage, indeed unaffected by the fire though it seemed his form was constantly shifting as if the surface of his image were burning off. He poked at the ceiling, prodding open an area large enough for them to fit through. Cloud moved his eyes back to the Lifestream. It seemed so insignificant, weak. A feeble puddle even. But maybe it was the only way to destroy the alien.

Without a corporeal body, there would be nothing to protect the parasitic source of infestation from the planet's most natural defense. There'd be nothing for the calamity to hold onto down in the flow of it, and maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to stop it or at the very least keep it confined.

"Okay, buddy, I think this will work," the creature wearing Zack's face said, examining his handiwork. He marched over to Cloud and bent over. The cavernous opening was directly next to him, and Cloud lay very still, willing his muscles to tense and function just one last time.

Zack reached over, lifting Cloud by the shirt, careful not to make any contact with his skin. The alien was strong, so much stronger than Cloud. It seemed ridiculous that Cloud ever actually thought he could beat him in sheer combat. Which is why he couldn't win. He'd never win.

Just as Cloud's boots touched the cracking tile floor, he sprang into motion. Using every ounce of strength he had left, he grabbed Zack, held onto him tight, and pushed them both over the edge, falling into the pit below.

The alien scrambled to grab onto something, anything, to prevent the fall but it was too late. They fell through open space. The cave was larger than it looked, echoing all around them as Zack let out a shout of anguish. In freefall, the two plummeted directly towards the tiny green pool below. Cloud watched the bright fiery ruins above grow smaller.

Then they both hit the water. Acute pain jolted through Cloud's body at the point of impact, and his muscles failed. He sank. Liquid covered his skin and hair, refreshing and soothing actually. Everything was dark and cold, the exact opposite of the world they'd fallen from. Somewhere nearby Zack moved, but Cloud couldn't see him anymore. The pool was deep and wide. Edges of rock above had concealed the true size of the Lifestream brewing below. It was endless, and he drifted.

There was nothing more he could do. He wanted to swim upwards, to grab a breath of fresh air, but his muscles weren't responding anymore. He couldn't feel his wounded arm at all and he was positive several ribs were broken. And when he couldn't hold his breath any longer, his lungs sucked in a mouthful of fluid like a reaction, an involuntary gasp. Survival instinct fought in a brief flash of adrenaline and his legs kicked in response, but he wasn't anywhere near the surface. He wasn't anywhere at all. The Lifestream stretched off in all directions around him. Vast and empty.

It was comforting, really, to know that the thing everyone thought was long gone had actually just been buried, receded, forgone. Not dead. Nothing on the planet ever truly dies. It was all part of a cycle, one that he was part of too. Life and death didn't matter. They couldn't matter. Not in this world, or any other.

The anxiety of drowning consumed the rest of his attention until his brain became a fog. The slippery ocean felt tight like restraints, constricting his chest and throat. There was no way back, he knew. No way at all.

Just before he lost consciousness, he thought of her. He remembered holding her in a dying city, in the bluish dawn of morning light. A single moment of time and space. Then he lost that too as everything faded.


	25. Fallout

\- Fallout -

* * *

Tifa dreamt of a city twice destroyed. It hadn't been a particularly beautiful city, and she'd remembered wanting to demolish parts of it herself, those large cylindrical structures that guarded the perimeter. Glowing green as heaven, as healing rain.

And now, it was a wasteland. She stumbled through piles of rubble and garbage. The city had flourished after its first destruction. After the rotting pizza had been no more, a new day emerged from the ashes. A hopeful ring around the edge of despair. The end of the world hadn't really ended.

She'd lived there once, maybe in dreams, though she'd hardly recognize it now. Her feet hit water, and it rushed over her boots cold. She'd reached a ditch in the piles of junk. A flow of rainwater that had somehow become blocked and backed up, flooding. A body floated by. A twisted, mangled awful thing. Not human. It had mandibles and faint feathery wings growing from its back. Tifa recoiled in horror.

The stream was full of them actually. Bodies of dead things. They piled high on one end, the source of the dam. Some were different, more closely resembling human. She reached out and touched the skin of one, but it fell into dust. The whole city was like dust, drifting away in the wind.

Why was she alone in this place? The sun burned low in the sky but she couldn't tell if it was sunrise or sunset. She had no sense of direction anymore. Or time. Time was a fluid meaningless event. Today could be yesterday could be tomorrow. She walked onward, through the dead city. The chattering shadows of her nightmares were gone, scattered about like lifeless rocks. Only she had survived.

She'd survived the destruction before and again and now. What more was there to do? She felt hungry, thirsty, but still she kept walking.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered a man. A lover. A desire to be whole. He was here, wasn't he? In the ruins?

The sun moved higher. The sun moved lower. Where was she going? It didn't matter. The edges of the city were in reach, and after that, she'd just keep going. Leave the desolation behind. Find help maybe. She dreamt on.

She dreamt until she reached the shores of the ocean. The silhouetted city was dark at her back in the distance, and the ocean gleamed black and white at her feet. She knelt and scooped up a handful of sand. It reminded her of skeletons, ground into bits of scratchy tiny pieces.

He was blonde, she remembered. With blue eyes and a terrible secret.

"Cloud…" He didn't seem real. More like a convenient fantasy her brain had cooked up. Being lost in this city for so long can leave one discombobulated. And she'd been dreaming after all. "Cloud…"

The shoreline lapped at her boots. The sun drifted lower. Tifa began crying. Not because she was sad or happy but because she was lost in the deepest darkest sense of the word. Every fiber in her body felt disconnected. Unnatural. Impossible. She shouldn't exist.

She leaned back and stared up at the sky. It was a deep dark blue, and a single star shone above. A promise. The word repeated in her head a dozen times. Her promise. No, his promise.

Then she collapsed.

When she woke she was still dreaming, but it was hours or days later. Time didn't really matter here, she knew. The tide was washing up onto her clothing, bringing freezing cold waters, so she stood and walked onward, leaving a trail of bootprints in the sand. She was remembering more as she walked. His face, his touch, the way he smiled. She remembered a child, maybe two, and she remembered their relationship falling apart. There'd been another man in her life. There'd been joys and sorrows. Yes, she'd had a full life of emotions and events. But her mind kept going back to him.

"Cloud." She held onto the name like an anchor in a storm. It was all slowly coming back. She kept walking.

Eventually she reached the edges of a village, though it seemed mostly devastated. People in long robes moved about aimlessly, hopelessly lost. None of them paid her any attention as she passed, following the shore. They were just as out of sorts as she was, a mirror in the dream.

After the village, she began to feel tired again. And still very thirsty. Then she saw a body washed up on shore.

It was a man near a cavernous edge of the shoreline, lying on his side. Blonde hair was stuck to his face along with bits of debris from the ocean, seaweed and sand. This part of the beach opened into what seemed to be a cave system, though Tifa didn't venture in to confirm. Her eyes were set on the dead man and her heart was racing with a million memories.

She crouched next to him, gently turning him over with one hand, and instantly her mind jolted. It was him. The man in her dreams. Her lover. The one she'd been searching for all this time. Yes, she remembered now. She remembered everything! It flooded like daylight into her head.

"Cloud!"

He was breathing. Somehow, someway, he was alive. The Jenova, she reflected brutally, it must've kept him alive, protected him. They'd woken up in the real world, here. They'd done it. They'd found a way back, though the last thing she could remember was being locked in a cell at the WRO, for her own good Cloud had told her. But now, here he is! They'd beaten the odds.

"Wake up…" She shook him, but he wasn't responding. His pulse and breathing were steady but he simply wasn't waking up. She'd seen something like this before. It looked like Mako poisoning. And his shoulder was a bloody mess. She noticed there were burns all along his exposed skin.

The world clicked harsh and clear around her. She had to get him to safety from the elements before it got dark. It would be too cold and he was soaked. With little regard for herself, she pulled him up into the grassy dunes and looked all around. That village that she'd passed. Surely it couldn't be that far. She'd carry him back, drag him if she had to, and make sure someone there could help.

Now that she had a mission, nothing could stop her. Tensing her muscles, she lifted him up as best she could and trudged towards the village in the distance. It was Kalm. She remembered that now. And the residents were all supposed to be fervent worshippers of Jenova or something, but maybe they'd still be willing to help. It was her only shot.

With a clear path ahead, she pressed on, determined to save him. Again. How many times had she found him half-dead somewhere? No matter. She'd do it again. She'd do it a thousand times, if that's what it took. Because if she'd actually woken up here, in the real world, that meant he'd somehow succeeded in breaking free of the calamity.

It was an invigorating thought, and it kept her going as night tiptoed into the sky. She neared the village. They saw him and seemed to think he was some sort of god. They helped her, too, giving her food and water. She collapsed again hours later, feeling the weight of time and anxiety catching up, though she refused to leave his side. This time she wouldn't let him go. Her thoughts were still swimming with contradicting timelines and multiple instances of conversations and interactions, but it was all settling down gradually into a single immutable path. There'd be time to sift through the remains of her memories later. For now she let out a breath, and curled next to Cloud in the makeshift medical clinic, lying on the bed with him.

Before she could catch herself, she fell backwards into sleep. It was a beautiful, restful state. A great big nothingness with no dreams at all.


	26. Miss You Most of All

\- Miss You Most of All -

* * *

It was a blur. Waking, falling, dreaming. All of it could have been the same thing in his head. A whirling sort of dizziness kicked his eyes open, and the world surged fresh and bright.

"So, you're awake."

A man in white stood near the foot of his bed. Cloud blinked and rubbed his eyes. He'd fallen into the Lifestream, that much he could remember. Which meant he likely had Mako poisoning again.

"What happened?" was all Cloud managed to ask.

"What happened!" the man repeated, stepping closer, and Cloud recognized it was Reeve wearing a big smile. "What happened is we all thought you were dead."

"The calamity…"

"Destroyed."

"And Tifa?"

"She's just fine."

"Just fine…"

"Yes."

It troubled him somehow. Waking up here. Waking up at all. How could he know this wasn't a dream either? There was no way to know.

"Cloud!" A new happy voice shouted and entered his vision. It was Marlene. Cloud sat up. He was in a bedroom, though he didn't recognize anything in it. No windows, just a few plain pieces of furniture. Marlene was older than Cloud remembered. She ran up and hugged him tightly. "I'm so sorry to have shot you," she said, "I was just panicking really, but I'd never really hurt you."

"...Of course," Cloud replied, trying his best smile, "Don't worry about that. I'm sure I was…" Frightening. Lethal. Possessed. He left the word empty, feeling it echo in his chest. That thing had really taken a hold of him. Infected him and made him believe anything was real.

"I'm so glad you're back, Cloud," Marlene continued, "She'll be so happy that you're awake."

Would she? He suddenly remembered the entire other decade he'd lived on the other side, the one where Tifa had left him, where they'd argued for years and broken apart over the death of -

"Denzel," he said abruptly, "Where is he? Is he okay?"

Marlene's face went white. "Uh… You should go talk to her."

That meant bad news. Cloud sighed, deeply. A heavy sad sound. "Okay Marlene. Thanks."

Peeling the IV from his arm, Cloud steadied himself on the edge of the bed. His shoulder still hurt but it seemed someone had used a series of healing materia on it. He rolled his arm and tested weight on his legs. Everything seemed fine. The burns on his skin were all healed, too. His muscles weren't particularly atrophied yet so that meant he hadn't been unconscious for too long.

"We're in Gongaga," Reeve stated, "The entire cave system beneath the Fort collapsed. Cid barely managed to get most of us out on the airships. We were scouting for survivors over the continent, and that's when we found you and Tifa in Kalm."

"Kalm?" That didn't seem right.

"Yes, you're very lucky to have survived."

Lucky. He didn't feel lucky. He got up to leave.

"Wait, Cloud," Reeve called hesitantly, "There's something else you should know. We examined your blood, you know, just to make sure that parasite was gone."

Cloud paused, dreading the response. He flexed his arm again, rotating his shoulder. Then he remembered his swords. They were gone, lost in that awful fire. The explosion. Zack standing there in the impossible light and heat. Searing his flesh.

"And?" Cloud asked nonchalant.

"The Jenova cells have mutated."

It was the last thing he wanted to hear, yet somehow he already knew.

"I really don't care about that," Cloud replied, "Is Tifa here? What about Vincent? Is he okay, too? And Barret. I… I think I may have…" It was coming back in vivid, sharp pieces. Cloud breathed out. "Are they all okay? Yuffie? Red?"

Reeve nodded. "Yuffie is fine. She remembers you protecting her from the alien so it evidently never touched her. She was able to recover shortly after the Fort collapsed. You were in there when it happened, weren't you? With the calamity?" His eyes narrowed on Cloud, making Cloud feel slightly uncomfortable.

"Yes, I was… I had woken up. There was something in the air, maybe from the labs, that kept my head clear long enough for me to fight it. There was an explosion. The caves opened up beneath us, and we fell in. The Lifestream was down there."

"That's impossible," Reeve replied, "The Lifestream has been dried up for a long time. That can't be right."

Cloud didn't feel like arguing, so he just moved on. "What about Vincent? He was badly hurt."

"Vincent is also fine now. It seems anyone who was infected with the alien's influence, and who hadn't been physically mutated, was able to make a full recovery once the connection was severed." Reeve shifted his weight and his voice lowered. "Those multitudes in Edge who had been… manipulated or transformed were all found dead. Losing their link with the alien was, I suspect, too great for their bodies and minds to handle. We… We figured we had lost you, too, Cloud."

"Barret, and Red?"

Reeve sighed like he was reciting something difficult from memory. "Red disappeared shortly after the calamity hit, protecting refugees in Cosmo Canyon, but we haven't heard much from him. And Barret is… angry with you, of course, but he understands what happened. He knows it wasn't really you that nearly… Well, I'm sure these things will just take time."

Nobody was telling him about Denzel or Tifa. Cloud nodded at Reeve, thanked him for the updates, then proceeded to leave the room. Everything felt unstable and tenuous at first, but after a few steps down the hall, equilibrium in this world began to return to him. The building was dilapidated, a remnant of a tenement before the calamity fell, but it had been well maintained recently. He passed by a few others in the halls. Everyone gave him wary frightened looks, and one guy even turned and ran the other way once he spotted Cloud. Yes, these things would take time. He sighed.

"Cloud!" Tseng was behind him, emerging from another room hand-in-hand with Elena. "So good to see you awake."

Tseng patted him on the back happily and Elena smiled over. Seeing the Turk brought back a heavy dose of memories. Cloud remembered working with him at the WRO. The man had always been just a little off. A shadow of something more beneath the surface. An occasional conversation that fell into delusional paranoia. Had he also been trapped in the nightmare world? Had everyone? All the people he'd known over there. Everyone he'd spent time with. Did they remember it like he did?

Cloud said nothing, only nodded politely at Tseng's enthusiasm, and the couple continued past. The general mood in the air was joyous exhaustion, yet Cloud couldn't escape the images populating his head as he navigated through the halls, searching for Tifa. He remembered moving through the dead city of Edge, looking for people. WRO soldiers. Survivors. And he remembered cutting them all apart. Blood everywhere. Maybe he'd even killed the family members of the people staying here, right alongside him. It was a chilling thought. Losing control like that. But it had happened. It had all been real. The dreams he'd had, those were the false bits meant to confuse him. Did he have that right?

At the end of the hall was a single open window overlooking the sparse dottings of abandoned homes and offices throughout the town below. The buildings were dark and dirty, long left to ruin, and the sky was a pasty sunless white. The light outside had a bleary timeless quality to it, and Cloud couldn't immediately tell if it was early morning or early evening.

"Hey buddy."

He spun at the sound of the voice. Zack. The alien. The calamity. It had survived. Cloud's heart raced and his hands reflexively reached for the empty space on his back, but of course, the sword was gone and his mind panicked. Tifa had tried to teach him some basic unarmed combat long ago to supplement the scattered remnants of his military training, and now his brain was scrambling to access any of that knowledge. Not that it would matter. The thing had survived. It had plunged into the Lifestream and lived, which only meant…

"What are you doing here, pal?"

Zack stood in the doorway next to the window. He rested his hands on his hips and tilted his head.

"I mean, I'm glad to see you, but… shouldn't you still be on the other side?"

Cloud backed up defensively, eyes locked on the apparition. He desperately hoped the Jenova would wake up and protect him like it had before. There was nothing around he could use as a weapon. The hallway was dull and barren. He looked through the open window, but it was too high to jump. He swallowed, feeling his options disappearing. A strange sickening despair curled under his ribs.

"Cloud? Are you even listening?"

Zack reached out towards him, but his eyes were genuinely surprised. They were vibrant points of dark purple. No Mako shine. It didn't make sense.

Cloud backed up against the wall, avoiding its touch. He could run, he could jump out the window anyways, he could call for help, but if the alien had won then likely everyone he'd encountered was lost just like he was. Just like he'd been. What if he never woke up? What if he was-

"Oh." A female voice spoke up suddenly, from behind Zack. "He's here?"

Cloud's heart caught in his chest. Something was very wrong. He recognized that voice, and it wasn't Tifa. Or Yuffie. Or anyone living.

"I'm…" Cloud struggled to find his breath. "I was in the Lifestream. And you're..."

Zack smiled. "Dead?"

Then it hit him. This wasn't the alien. He wasn't awake. This wasn't Gongaga. He felt dizzy, nauseous. He was plummeting down, back against the wall. Sliding onto the floor. Anxiety grabbed him horrifically. Tightening.

"I...I left her!" he said up at Zack, frantically, "I fucking left her!"

Zack looked puzzled and not nearly as disturbed as Cloud felt the situation warranted. In fact, Zack seemed right at home here, even despite the ruins outside. He glanced back over his shoulder at the source of the woman's voice and the two exchanged words though it was far too soft for Cloud to hear. Blood was pumping so loud in his head, Cloud could barely make sense of anything. The truth was cutting in bits and pieces. His vision was starting to blacken around the edges. No, he begged, don't pass out. Please!

Zack knelt next to him.

"I don't think so, pal." Zack touched his shoulder, fingers casually grazing against the skin of his arm, and Cloud felt nothing back. No insidious pathogens. No mind-numbing takeovers. Absolutely nothing. "It looks like the planet isn't done with you yet."

Cloud suddenly didn't want to go. He touched Zack's hand. He wanted to stay there with his friend. The man who'd protected him from the worst of the fire. But already the struggling pit in his core was pulling him inward, and his vision was darkening. A noise hissed in his ears like static, bubbling up his spine. He held Zack's hand tighter, willing everything in his body not to let go, not to leave him now the way he left her.

Then he awoke with a violent gasp. The world burned hot and dark instantly, and he couldn't catch his breath. A woman lay next to him. He pushed her away. Her skin was like fire. He felt burned and raw. His lungs hurt. He started coughing, choking.

"Cloud?" The name stopped him cold.

In the darkness, his eyes could barely make her out. She sat upright next to him, long dark hair in sleepy disarray. They both lay in a bed together on top of stark white sheets, though he couldn't see much more of the room aside from the dim outline of a single shadeless window. But it was night and cloudy. Nothing to see. Nothing there.

"Where am I?" His voice was faint and scratchy. He reached out to touch her. "Are you real? Am I alive?"

"Yes," she sounded so happy, "Yes, you're alive. And I'm real."

Her hands were on him, moving over his chest and up his neck and face. Trembling. The pain in his shoulder screamed to life in hot liquid stabs. And his adrenaline vaulted into high alert.

"Tifa?" He called her name, just to know it was really her. That she was really there, and that they were together. Wherever this was. "Tifa, I didn't mean to leave you. I never meant to wake up."

"It's fine," she soothed and kissed his face, "Don't worry about that. It doesn't matter. You're here."

Here. Wherever it was. She reached over and flicked on a light. The world popped into existence, bright and harsh in a yellowish tinge, and a million details flooded his senses all at once. It was disorienting. An immense sickly gravity weighed heavy in the humid air. Painfully, he sat up. His skin felt tight, raw, branched with burns, and his shoulder was wrapped in a thick white bandage. An IV dripped something clear and viscous into his veins. She sat next to him, watching with dark ruby eyes.

"Where are we?" he asked, taking in the sight of her. She was thin, disheveled, worn down. He wanted to hug her and clear away the past arguments, the slow dissolution of their relationship.

"Kalm."

Reeve's words came back to him. They'd been found outside of Kalm.

"The Lifestream…" he said weakly, "I tried to kill that thing. I fell into it."

Tifa broke into a smile. "I know. I found you on the shore. I thought you were dead. I'd been always told you were dead."

It was all catching up to her. The pain and panic of years shown in her face. The deceleration of adrenaline. The weary days and sleepless nights. Exhaustion beyond insomnia. All the time that had passed between them like ghosts. The two worlds crowded around, suffocating. She suddenly seemed fragile enough to break.

He didn't know what to say. So he just held her, ignoring the pain rippling over his skin. She fell into his arms and he held her tight. It had been so long since he'd actually felt real human contact, he'd almost forgotten the intensity.

But at least he knew it was real. She was here. And that was all he needed at that moment. The rest of it could wait.


	27. Elements of Life

\- Elements of Life -

* * *

He found Yuffie on the edge of the city near sunset. She was doing target practice, throwing tiny lethal shurikens with deadly accuracy at a blot of rust on the side of a broken-down van. Glints of metal left her fingertips with ease, puncturing swiftly. She retrieved them and did it again.

Finally she noticed him standing there, watching, and let out a little laugh.

"Barret kick you out again?" she asked him.

Cloud shrugged, then nodded. It hadn't been easy for him, readjusting to society in the aftermath. After Cid had found him and Tifa in Kalm, they'd rendezvoused with the survivors from the Fort and set up a base in Junon. The large military city was abandoned, as all metropolises were, but in decent enough condition that they decided to remain there. Just in case there were other survivors. But the Fort had collapsed entirely, and every day the prospect of finding anyone else in the rubble grew slimmer. Barret had stopped talking to Cloud altogether. Marlene had been right behind him, he'd said, running towards the exit, when the explosion happened beneath them and the corridor shook and gave out. She'd slipped right through his fingers. Right into the dust.

That was months ago.

From what Vincent had told them, it had been pure luck that Cloud had woken up at all. He hadn't even intended the serum mixtures to get into the ventilation system, and the fire had been truly an accident. Then he'd barely been able to retrieve Yuffie and Denzel before escaping on the airship with Cid and a handful of surviving soldiers just as the floors began caving in. Everyone had assumed Cloud was dead.

Luck. Cloud thought about that a lot. It seemed he was always very lucky.

Except after the shock of rescue and reunion was over, they had to rebuild. They had to start somewhere. Barret took over as head of the new WRO, but it was slow moving. People were scattered across the other continents and nobody dared go near Edge. Cid had sent a handful of reconnaissance drones out there and reported back that everything inside was dead. The monstrous beings that had served the alien were cold empty bodies, decaying in the sun.

Yuffie threw another shuriken, this time aiming for a different small speck of rust on the van's door. She hit it dead on. Cloud couldn't help but think she was keeping her skills sharp specifically because of him, though he knew that was just paranoia. It was hard to move on when everyone around him kept acting like he'd lose control again. Barret in particular.

"I never thanked you," he said to Yuffie, watching her twist the shuriken free of the target.

He'd tried to be helpful, there was so much to do after all. So much clean-up and organization and searching. Many people wouldn't believe that the calamity was truly gone until Cloud showed up in person. But sometimes that had unintended consequences, and eventually he was relegated to staying in Junon and simply milling about. It was restless and he hated it, but he had to tread carefully. It would take time to heal the damage he'd inadvertently been involved in. A long time.

"Thanked me for what?" she replied, pushing her bandana up slightly to mop away some sweat. It was hot, and she paused to take a long swig of water from her canteen.

"For sticking those needles in my arm." The scars were still there. Six little pinpoints. "I would never have believed Tifa if you hadn't done that."

Yuffie didn't know what he had gone through. How could she? Even after he tried explaining to her and Cid the strangeness of experiencing two equally reliable sets of memories covering the exact same span of actual time, he realized they'd never truly understand. The calamity had twisted things around, jumbled up everything for him and Tifa and anyone else who'd been under its spell, though it seemed they were the only two true survivors. Yuffie had seen the alien, in Edge that night she tried to save Cloud, but from what she could remember, all she wanted to do was run to it, to be at its side and maybe then she would have transformed, slowly, into one of those hideous things. They'd never really know, and Yuffie hardly talked about it again. The protective serum was everyone's best guess as to why she had recovered at all.

"It was no sweat," Yuffie said, leaning back with a sly smile. "Besides that's what big sisters are for."

"Big sister?"

"Yeah, you're like my goofy little brother." Then she gave him an incredulous look. "What, didn't you know that?"

"Wait, how am I your little brother? I'm older than you. By five years."

"Yeah, but you skipped five years in your head, so that makes you my age." She pointed the tip of the shuriken at him decisively.

He thought for a second. "Even if that counted, which it doesn't, I'm still older than you by a few months."

She rolled her eyes. "Arguing, just like a little brother would."

The playful exchange made him feel good, though. At least Yuffie didn't hold a grudge. He stifled a grin. She resumed her practice, throwing the stars again. This time one missed the target, hitting slightly to its left, and let out a small huff of disapproval. She stood there, staring at the missed mark.

"Well, I'm glad those needles worked," her tone changed considerably, all comical undertones gone, "Or you would have killed me."

There it was. The cut that underpinned everyone's interactions with him. He crossed his arms uncomfortably, waiting for her mischievous smile to return and release this tension with a laugh, but it didn't. She walked over and retrieved her weapon.

"How's Denzel?" she asked suddenly.

He sighed. "No change."

The boy had been comatose since Cloud had last seen him at the Fort. Once Vincent's infection had miraculously healed up, everyone simply assumed that whatever had caused the link to the central parasite was dead. Which meant whatever was in Denzel had withered up and vanished. There was no trace of anything abnormal in his blood. But there wouldn't be, Cloud knew. It was the echo of Jenova that had appealed to the alien so it didn't need to infect Denzel directly. Not the way it had with the others.

Yuffie said nothing more, so Cloud departed. Barret didn't want him in the base right now and Cid was working on repairs to the airships. There was nothing for him to do around the city, not this close to sunset. Without a fully functional electrical grid, it wasn't easy to get things done after dark, even with the aid of materia, and the soldiers out scouting or running transports would be returning soon anyways. He didn't want to be seen hanging around aimlessly like a relic of darker days.

So he headed to the hospital. The pink and orange sky faded into dark red by the time he reached the building inland towards the docks. There were a handful of ailing civilians and soldiers within, but he strolled right past and headed upstairs. Everyone knew why he was there. It was the only reason he ever visited.

Denzel's room was a quiet tidy space with big open windows and plenty of sunlight in the mornings. The young man lay in bed with wires and medical equipment and plastic tape securing plastic tubes all across his body. Unchanged. A whir of electricity hummed. The hospital was one of the few places kept active at all hours.

Tifa sat in a chair next to Denzel, quietly looking down at a book in her hands though her eyes were focused elsewhere beyond the pages. Cloud hesitated at the doorway. Things had been strained between them. Living two whole lives together and apart simultaneously had changed her in many ways. After they'd been rescued in Kalm, the horror of losing Marlene and Reeve and Tseng and Elena never settled, and the blinding memories of her relationship with Cloud falling apart on the other side reigned high.

"I remember everything," she'd told Cloud one night in a frightened voice. "I remember his death, and I remember our arguments. The things we'd said and done to each other."

He wanted to assure her that it wasn't real, except he felt it too. The two sides pulled at him in equal intensity, vying for supremacy. He remembered walking through Edge, destroying his enemies with ease, desperately trying to protect Tifa, just as much as he remembered her walking out on him, having an affair, flitting in and out of his life like a cruel mirage. It didn't matter that those things were false because they'd both actually truly experienced them. And what was experience but a series of chemicals in the brain? Even if it wasn't real in the sense of time and space, it was real in memory and focus. Once Denzel wouldn't wake up, he felt her slipping away in this life, too. And it killed him.

"Hey Tif."

She slowly looked over. A weak smile traced her lips. "Cloud. Hi." She put the book down and stood to hug him. It was a brief compulsory gesture. "How did it go with Barret today?"

"Same as always."

"Hmm. I'll talk to him again," she said, "I keep trying to explain to him what it's like to be...in that other place. Losing all sense of surroundings." She shook her head. "He knows it wasn't really you and he knows it wasn't your fault, but Marlene… He won't heal from that. Ever."

Nobody could. Cloud nodded in agreement, but the tension between them only escalated after she fell silent.

"Well," she said at length, "I'll leave you two. Maybe tonight's the night he finally comes home."

"Wait." He gently touched her arm as she brushed past. "Don't go yet. Please."

Obediently, she stopped. Deep garnet eyes looked up at him, pained yet inquisitive.

"Everything that happened on the other side…" he said with a helpless sigh, "I can never fix that. And I know I owe you more than anything for saving me again. But you are the reason I'm here now. If you hadn't found me and told me the truth, I would've thought Zack...I would've been confused and lost even when awake. I… I will never forget that, everything you've done." It was difficult to pinpoint exactly what he wanted to say. He always had trouble telling her what he felt. So he looked into her eyes and settled with, "I can't lose you twice. Please stay in this world with me. You are still so far away sometimes."

She kissed him once and held his hand tight. "We're in this 'til the end. It's always been you and me, Cloud. In this world and whatever comes next. I just need some time." Then she left. It had been comforting, what she'd said, but still Cloud felt uneasy. Being at the hospital always made him feel a little ill.

He sat down near Denzel's bed and noticed she'd left her book behind. Absently, he picked it up and flipped through a few pages. It was a journal. She'd been writing down all she could remember from the other side, the dreamland. Creeped out just a tad, he put the book down, careful not to disturb the page she'd left off on. It was a description of him standing in the Sector Five ruins under an awning during a rainstorm.

Curious, he never remembered that.

Leaning back, he exhaled and began recounting his day to the comatose boy. It was a daily exercise that he thought could maybe help here like it had before, but the younger man gave no response and eventually Cloud dozed off as night dwindled on.

He awoke to a steady low beep like an alarm. One of the wires on the monitors had become dislodged somehow, and the error looped constantly at an irritating frequency. Groggily, he found the offender, a node meant for the boy's wrist, and he reached out to move Denzel's arm and fix the problem.

But a dull secondary sensation made him pause. Just as his fingers neared Denzel, he felt the other's heartbeat in his chest like a distant quake. Cloud froze. He hadn't made any physical contact with Denzel since waking, not after Vincent and Cid had reported the kid entirely unresponsive. Denzel had promptly been placed under medical care and Cloud had done nothing aside from sit at his bedside, keeping his distance on purpose. Being part of the calamity's closely kept family meant everyone was wary of the two together anyways. Even though he wanted to hug Denzel or even just brush his hair from his face when a breeze rustled in too strongly through the window, he didn't.

Only now he was a razor's width away from holding Denzel's wrist so he could re-apply the monitor and a bright terrible being was synchronizing itself to him from within Denzel. A shadow of something he once knew. But no, that was impossible.

Ignoring it, he picked up Denzel's arm and replaced the wire that had fallen off, and a world opened up beneath him. He could sense the remnants of the parasite's dominance like an echo. The Jenova had left behind markers through the Geostigma, and the parasite had used those somehow to activate Denzel like a puppet. Now Cloud could sense those same pathways too.

He released Denzel in a panic. Hadn't Reeve told him something in the Lifestream? That his Jenova cells had mutated, adapted somehow? He knew it was true. The calamity itself had made a similar comment, and now it was undeniable. The alien cells within him were greater, smarter, highly resilient, and they'd learned to protect themselves by somehow mimicking the parasitic infection. He wasn't sure exactly how, but he reasoned this was the only way he could be doubly experiencing the exact same sensation as when he'd found Denzel under the calamity's control, killing WRO soldiers in the Fort.

He held Denzel's arm again, and the other heartbeat resumed. Cloud felt nauseous, knowing what was happening, but he nevertheless tried to wake Denzel up. The other voice in his head wasn't there this time, but he imagined Denzel coming back, opening his eyes, returning to them whole. Intact. Unharmed.

He pictured Denzel gasping to life, tearing off the tubes and monitors in frantic disassembly, and Cloud would hug him close. He'd tell Denzel how happy he was to see him again, and maybe Denzel would remember some of the other side. That other place had been real, Denzel would say, so damn real.

Cloud would corroborate the surreality of it all, and surely a nurse would come rushing in from the halls with clipboard in hand, trying to make dire sense of how the young man recovered at all.

"I heard you," Denzel would say in a feeble voice, "I heard you speaking to me. You brought me back, Cloud!"

And Cloud would smile and exhale, relieved it was all over. He'd call Tifa. She'd come straight back to the hospital and be so happy to see Denzel awake. She'd lift right out of the fog that had been surrounding her, and they'd all be just fine.

It would take time, of course, to mend the pieces of broken reality for all of them. Denzel would have another set of memories, one that he only partially shared with both of them, and there may even be a long dark period in his head. A void of limbo. A sort of half-death. But eventually, they'd all be able to move past it. The long dark period would become nothing but a blip in stories. A collective nod they'd share once in awhile. A reference for historical purposes. Nothing that could trap them ever again.

Yes, because Cloud knew the thing within would always protect him. It would protect everyone, if it had to, in order to preserve itself. The last of its kind. Always surviving. A bright point of light in a sea of death. Corpses piling high in the ruins of Edge. A predator. But no, everything would be fine now. His family would be whole again. Him and Tifa and Denzel.

Amongst the disarray of rebuilding, the three of them would be happy again. The trauma of losing each other would, in fact, bring them closer together. They'd never have to be apart again. They'd never have to be afraid.

And maybe one night he would look up at the billions of stars above and realize all of them were like him. He was part of something greater, expansive, vast. Timeless.

Timeless as a loop.

He stopped the vision before it swallowed him whole. It had trickled into someone's else's thoughts. No, not some _one_.

"Hey buddy."

Cloud's eyes snapped open. But the room was entirely undisturbed. Denzel still lay in bed, unawake. Cloud breathed out. Just a shadow of the parasite somehow kicking back through him. A memory. A remnant of Mako poisoning.

The mechanical whir of the medical machinery continued uninterrupted in the silence, and he released Denzel's arm. No, it had been nothing. The cold empty remnants of the parasite's control over Denzel weren't viable. The parasite was dead, and even if his own Jenova cells had adapted to imitate the parasite, Cloud couldn't wield that same sort of power alone. It was foolish to think otherwise.

He sat back in the chair and sighed hopelessly. The overhead fluorescent bulbs buzzed and flickered, but otherwise the hospital was quiet. Denzel didn't stir. Cloud got up and walked out.

Outside the hospital doors, the humid night air stuck to his skin and patches of moonlight pushed through the clouds. The deserted sidewalks and buildings were dark and foreboding as he headed towards his apartment. He wished he could just skip ahead five or ten years when this place would be reborn with life again. He couldn't even imagine what Edge looked like. Well, he could but it wasn't pretty. It wasn't even reasonable to assume anyone could live there ever again given what had transpired. The site of a double catastrophe would be the source of ghost stories for years to come.

Tifa was asleep when he walked in. They lived together in an apartment complex near the base, along with half a dozen other families and survivors from the Fort. The scavengers who'd been squatting in Junon had been remarkably hostile towards the WRO and had fled east, though Cloud couldn't fathom why. Aside from the village of cultists near Kalm, there wasn't much out there.

Tiptoeing into the bedroom, he carefully shifted his weight down to lay next to her, but she wasn't fully asleep. Once he settled, she reached out for him. Her voice was loving, steady. He moved closer. She asked about Denzel, but there was nothing to report.

"Do you think it's true, then?" she said in the darkness, "That what happened to him in the other world affected him here, too?"

The thought had crossed Cloud's mind many times, but it didn't seem possible. He reassured her that it wasn't.

"Oh!" she said suddenly as if just remembering something and flipped on the light, "I have a surprise for you. Wait right here."

Then she stood and pulled on her robe. The red silky garment was something he'd remembered from years ago, when they both still lived in Edge. She'd kept it all this time. It made him smile that some things hadn't changed. She disappeared from their bedroom, and he heard her rifling through the hall closet.

"I didn't expect it to be finished so soon," she called almost in apology from the hallway.

She re-appeared with a massive sheathed sword in her arms. It was the exact same size of the weapon he'd lost in the fire.

"How…?" Pleasant surprise rolled over him as she handed the weapon over. His shoulder pulsed in slight revolt as he accepted the weight of it, then he pulled the steel free. It was a beautiful lethal edge, perfectly balanced and clean. At the handle was a mechanism similar to his old set that released the embedded blades within. Almost identical. The make was different, of course, but the concept was the same. The weaponsmith who'd made his fusion blades was likely long dead anyways, but this was a very convincing alternative.

"The weapons team finished it this afternoon," she said, watching him. "It's nothing special, but I just thought you'd been feeling… incomplete lately."

He sheathed it again and quelled the unease rising in his chest. Incomplete. Yes, that sounded about right. More like out of place.

"Does Barret know you're giving this to me?" he asked casually like the answer couldn't possibly upset him either way.

He'd always suspected Barret and the others were relieved he no longer had a weapon. Nobody ever mentioned his missing swords or explicitly asked what had happened in the basement of the Fort. As far as everyone was concerned, the blades that had taken so many lives, WRO and otherwise, were just a part of the calamity's story. A phantasmic addition to the frightful killer that had roamed the ruins of Edge.

Tifa laughed. "Yes, of course he does," she stated, smiling gently, "It was his idea."

The significance of it spurred a lightness in his stomach, dissolving the rock of tension that had been sitting there since he'd woken up, since he'd been reunited with all of his old friends. The time they'd spent apart, especially with him falling to their enemy, was something he thought would never be repaired. The damage had simply been too great.

"Oh," Cloud exhaled, genuinely relieved. "Thanks. I just thought maybe…"

"It's from all of us, really," Tifa clarified, beaming, "Barret and Yuffie and Cid and Vincent. And me."

She was blushing. He hadn't seen her blush in a long time. Their relationship had gone beyond flirtatious gestures and moments of romantic tension years ago, but now it was like starting over, and he felt himself falling in love with her all over again.

"We're your family, after all," Tifa continued, "We help each other out no matter what. It's always been like that."

It was such a lovely thought that Cloud held onto it for several moments. Then he put the weapon down and hugged Tifa close. He breathed her in. A new fresh life. They could all keep going.

Later that night, he lay in bed with her wrapped in his arms, and outside through the open window, the sky had cleared up and Cloud could see a million stars. They filled the darkness like luminous dust. It was the first time he thought it looked beautiful. He watched it for a while. His family. They were all right here, surrounding him.

He'd become something terrible all that time. He'd been held hostage, kept hidden as the calamity slowly collected anything touched by Jenova. It's infection crawled across the planet, destroying more than he'd realized. Yet still they were there for him. Yuffie had risked her life to wake him up, even if just for a moment. Vincent had physically fought off the pretender, more than once he'd been told. Even Barret had evidently not wanted Cloud to go too long without a weapon, despite the fact that Cloud had nearly sliced him apart with one. And Tifa… he let his eyes fall back onto her, sleeping peacefully next to him. She'd gone after him in the other world, risking her sanity in the process just to find him. She had no way out yet still she'd tried. He kissed her forehead.

Yes, his family. They'd saved him, against all odds. He'd never forget the immutable communion of his time with the parasite. He distinctly felt its absence the way one notices the first chill after a long summer. But he no longer needed it. He never did really. He had everything right here.

And that was worth more than the stars. It was worth more than whoever he once had been.

 **\- fin -**


End file.
